[1] His best-known novels include Ruined City, which was banned by the State Publishing Administration for over 17 years for its explicit sexual content, and The Shaanxi Opera, winner of the 2009 Mao Dun Literature Prize.
Due to a shortage of qualified teachers in Shaanxi at the time, however, Jia's father was often away from home and so he spent much of his early childhood with his mother, Zhou Xiao'e (周小鹅).
While working on a production brigade, Jia had the good fortune to attract the attention of local party cadres after volunteering to write revolutionary slogans, and thanks to their support he was sent to study literature at Northwest University in Xi'an in 1971.
After graduating in 1975 Jia found employment at Shaanxi People's Publishing House editing the monthly magazine Chang’an, and in 1978 his short story "Full Moon" won a national award from the China Writers Association.
Grief would compel Jia to take a more introspective tone with his next project, conceived as a semi-autobiographical account of a morally depraved author from the countryside who has been corrupted by fame.