He was born in
Longkou,
Yantai, which is located in the north of the
Shandong Peninsula. He graduated from the Chinese Department at Yantai Normal College in 1980. Three years later, he became a member of
China Writers Association, an organization for which he has served as chairman and deputy chairman of the Shandong branch. Wei is best known for his novels
The Ancient Ship and ''
September's Fable''. In 2011 Zhang won the
Mao Dun Literature Prize, the highest national literary award, for
On the Plateau, a 10-volume work that took a decade to write. ==Works==