[3] Born in Zaolinzhuang Village (枣林庄; Zǎolín Zhuāng), Huang County (now Longkou), at the north-east coast of Shandong province, Qu Bo's early education was through a private school where he started to gain his sound knowledge of Chinese classical literature and succinct language skills.

Qu Bo had further education at the Counter-Japanese Military and Political University in Shandong and became a journalist of an army newspaper, The Progress.

In 1946 he married Liu Bo (刘波; Liú Bō) who was a head nurse of a hospital at the same army regional headquarters.

During the communist regime after 1949, Qu Bo worked in the railway industry and the Ministry of Machinery until his retirement, and lived in Beijing for the rest of his life.

He had, however, never stopped his full-time industrial management jobs and only wrote books and articles during his spare time.

He was born in the Heilongjiang province, China, and grew up during the political and turbulence of the Chinese cultural revolution.

[10][11] The book was translated into English, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Norwegian and Arabic.