Liu grew up in the village of Laozhuang in
Yanjin County,
Henan, China. At age 14, he left his village and joined the army. At age 20, he took the
national college entrance exam, achieved the highest score in Henan province, and was accepted at
Peking University. After graduation, he became a journalist. In the 1980s Liu began to concentrate seriously on his literary career, publishing his debut novella
Tapu, in 1987. He went on to publish novels such as
Hometown, Regime and Blood (故乡天下黄花),
Anecdotes in the Hometown (故乡相处流传),
Material and Spirit in the Hometown (故乡面和花朵),
Nonsense Talk (一腔废话),
Cell Phone (手机),
The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon (我叫刘跃进). His novels
One Sentence Is Ten Thousand Sentences (一句顶一万句) and
I Am Not Madame Bovary (我不是潘金莲) have sold over a million copies each.
Someone to Talk To was awarded with
Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2011 and has sold more than 1.6 million copies. He has also authored novellas such as
A Small Town: Tapu (塔铺),
Recruits (新兵连),
The Office (单位),
Ground Covered with Chicken Feathers (一地鸡毛),
Remembering 1942 (温故一九四二). Throughout the years, Liu's works have been translated into over 28 languages. Many of Liu's books have been adapted into TV series and movies. He has written the screenplays for some of them including:
A Small Town: Tapu,
Ground Covered with Chicken Feathers,
The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon,
Remembering 1942,
Someone to Talk To,
I Did Not Kill My Husband. Several of these adapted films have been awarded in the film festivals around the world, including the
Toronto International Film Festival, the
Rome Film Festival, the
Busan International Film Festival, and the
Hong Kong International Film Festival, among others. ==Themes and influences==