A Shanghai native, Ye Xin "volunteered" to receive his "rustication" in remote Guizhou in 1969, where he spent 2 decades of his life.
Ye has been vice-chairman of China Writers Association since 1997, and president of Shanghai University College of Liberal Arts from 1997 to 2014.
A year later, Ye and his younger sister arrived in Xiuwen County, Guizhou (2000 km away from Shanghai), where he noticed "life was worse than [he] imagined.
He had to write in bed since there was no table, and rely on the paper his former classmate mailed him from Shanghai as it was otherwise also unavailable.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and the relaxation of the political atmosphere, Ye began to write about the hardships and sufferings endured by "sent-down youths", his "real emotions and thinking".