[1] Born in the province of Sichuan, his family moved to Beijing, a city that figures prominently in his work, in 1950.
Liu spent most of his life in Beijing, except for a brief period during the Cultural Revolution, when he was sent to work in rural China.
In 1987, however, he was removed as editor of the publication People's Literature after a story published failed to meet government approval.
Since the early 1990s Liu has also been engaging in Redology, also known as studies of the famous 18th-century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber.
Liu takes on the controversial stance that in studying this famous Qing novel, the researcher's point of departure should be the figure of Qin Keqing, thus authoring the branch of Qin studies (Chinese: 秦學; pinyin: qínxué) within redology.