Cao Wenxuan is a professor of Chinese at Beijing University, Associate Director of the Children’s Literature Committe of the Chinese Writer’s Association, and a bestselling author of children’s literature. He has won many academic and literary awards include the Hans Christian Anderson Award, Song Qingling Literature Award, the Bing Xin Literature Award, and the National Book Award (China).

Cao’s main themes are morality, the appreciation of beauty and compassion. Cao has noted: “My own childhood was filled with miseries and memories of hunger, so I hope to provide young readers an understanding of how to treat miseries,” says Cao. “Many hardships the country has gone through are where its power and fortune lie. Smart writers should know how to utilize the resources.”

Cao Wenxuan was born in Yancheng, in East China’s Jiangsu Province. He graduated from the department of Chinese Language and Literature of Peking University in 1977 and was elected to teach in the university. He began writing in 1983[1].

Cao Wenxuan is one of most influential children’s literature writers in China. He has written more than 60 works, more than 40 of which have received a number of awards and recognitions, many of which have been translated into English, German, French, Russian, Swedish, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and other languages[2]. In recent years, he began to create picture books for Chinese children. His picture book copyright exported to France, Japan, Sweden, South Korea, Brazil, Denmark and other countries, twice won the China General Administration of Press and Publication Outstanding Books Award for export titles[3]. Besides, Cao’s prize winning work The Grass House (草房子) (directed by Xu Geng) has been adapted for film in 2000.

According to the 2021 annual report, Cao Wenxuan had a total market share of 1.05% of all children’s books sold in China’s retail market.

In 202201-202209, according to Openbook data, Cao Wenxuan ranked as No.1 of all the authors, he had a total market share of 0.53% of all books sold in China’s retail market.

Recent News about Cao Wenxuan:

• The graphic video of Cao Wenxuan to receive the 2016 International Hans Christian Andersen Award, reported by China Press and Publishing Media
• Cao Wenxuan: International Hans Christian Andersen Award winner telling Chinese stories
• “Fire Seal by Cao Wenxuan” staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts on Children’s Day in 2021 by Xi’an Children’s Art
• Cao Wenxuan’s picture book “Never Stop Running” won Peter Pan Prize in March 2022, reported by Chinawritter.com
• The characteristics of the times shown in children’s literature – the tour of the winning works of the 4th National Excellent Children’s Literature Award, reported by China’s Writer Association
• Impression of Cao Wenxuan, written by Gao Hongbo
• Appreciation of Classical Reading: Cao Wenxuan’s “The Eleventh Strip of Red Cloth”, reported by Centennial Hundreds of Children’s Literature Museum
• Going out of the mountains to see the world | “Reading and Life” public welfare forum was held in Capital Library, reported by China Education Newspaper
• On Cao Wenxuan’s Literary World, reported by cssxw.com

• Never Stop Running(永不停止的奔跑) won the Peter Pan Award in Sweden in March 2022

• Cao Wenxuan’s received the Hans Christian Andersen Author Award in 2016 from the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY).

IBBY commented that Cao “writes beautifully about the complex lives of children facing great challenges. He is a deeply committed writer, whose own difficult childhood has been deeply influential on his writing in which there are no easy answers.”

His acceptance speech was titled “Literature: Another Form of Housebuilding” 《文学：另一种造屋》. His writing philosophy is to create a sanctuary with his writing for not only himself but also for children.

Please also refer to Presentation of Hans Christian Andersen Award 2016:

Besides, Cao Wenxuan has received a number of prizes and awards for his works:

• Goats Do Not Eat Heaven Grass (山羊不吃天堂草) –

3rd Song Qingling Literature Prize, National Five Top Project Award;

• The Grass House (草房子) –

Bingxin Literature Prize, 4th National Book Award, National Five Top Project Award, 5th Song Qingling Literature Prize, 19th Golden Rooster Award for Best Writing (1999), Huabiao Award (1998), 14th Tehran International Film Festival – the Golden Butterfly Prize;

• Bronze and Sunflower (青铜葵花) –

Bingxin Literature Prize, National Book Award, National Five Top Project Award. The English translation was a 2017 Kirkus Finalist, a New York Times Notable Children’s Book of 2017, and has been nominated for YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults award, Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature – Best Books of 2017. Helen Wang’s English translation of Bronze and Sunflower earned her the 2017 Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation.);

• Dingding and Dangdang (丁丁当当) –

selected as one of the 2015 IBBY Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities;

He has a unique writing style with “aestheticism” and “poetry” as stylistic characteristics. IBBY has described his prize winning works in the following statements:

“In Bronze and Sunflower, a novel set during the time of the Cultural Revolution in a rural Chinese village close to a re-education center for people sent from the city, a village boy who does not speak and a little city girl who ends up coming to live with his family can be said to “save” each other. These children are entirely convincing and we care deeply about their fate.

In Cao’s Dingding Dangdang series we are captivated and moved by two brothers with Down syndrome who separately flee their village and then search for each other through a world that is alternately loving and rejecting. These books take risks and have a great deal at stake.

Cao Wenxuan’s books don’t lie about the human condition; they acknowledge that life can often be tragic and that children can suffer.  At the same time, they can love and be redeemed by their human qualities and the kindness they sometimes find when they are most in need. Cao’s writing about the natural world is lyrical and beautiful.  And Cao is a great example of how writing wonderful prose and telling stories about brave children facing tremendous difficulties and challenges can attract a very wide and committed child readership as well as helping to shape a literary tradition in China that honors the realities of children’s worlds. Recently Cao Wenxuan’s books have been making their way into the world and have found enthusiastic readers in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Korea. The rest of the world’s children are waiting to discover him, too.”

See our Book Review on:

The City without Streets

Bronze and Sunflower review by Nancy

Bronze and Sunflower review by Douban ID

Glass Eye Beads reveiw by Nancy

The Bird review by Nancy

Collection of excellent short reviews

The Grass Hut review by Nancy

• The latest novel Pomegranate Boat《石榴船》, was published by Jiangsu Juvenile and Children’s Publishing House in Dec 2022.

• Pomegranate Boat is children’s novel based on a true story which talked about a floating school in Jiangsu Province in the 1960s and 1970s China.

  The people lived in boats on the river worked as shipping workers, use the boat as their home, and move from place to place, their children unable to receive good school education. Ye Wenlin, the teacher sent by the county, set up a floating school on the Pomegranate boat(there is a pomegranate tree on the boat) in the fleet, teaching children to read and write, helping them to go to the vast world.

• The novel in children’s literature, Su Wu Herding Sheep《苏武牧羊》, was published by Tian Tian Publishing House in Sep, 2022.

• Jiang Boyan LLC licensed the audiobook rights outside of China for Cao Wenxuan’s 12 fictions. 

• The first original picture book in Mainland China won the “Best Children’s Book Award” at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. It was jointly created by Chinese writer Cao Wenxuan and South Korean painter Suzy Lee. The book The Yulu Linen won the special nomination for the “Fiction 2021” 

• In December 2019, Cao Wenxuan’s picture books for Chinese children have been published;
• The Writers Publishing House published Cao Wenxuan’s novel series Pika Brothers with 14 titles in November 2019;
• The Chinese publisher Phoenix Juvenile and Children’s Publishing promoted the work at the 23rd Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) on Aug 25. Glass Eyed Beads written by Cao Wenxuan takes the growth of Ah Mei, the granddaughter of Olsarny, as the main story line and outlines the caring and touching scenes of the family supporting each other in the special days from the perspective of the child against the backdrop of the dramatic social changes during the 1960s and 1970s.

• 曹文轩——中国的童话该往何处去    ,于和彦,           2019/5/1
• The Hans Christian Andersen Award, IBBY, 2016
• Cao Wenxuan claims Hans Christian Andersen Prize, china.org.cn,            2016/8/21
• Acceptance speech given by Cao Wenxuan, IBBY, 2016/8/20
• OpenBook data about author Cao Wenxuan, OpenBook      , 2019
• 曹文轩, Baidu Baike, 2019
• Cao Wenxuan, Wikipedia, 2019

Media Report             

• 曹文轩：写属于中国的童话故事, QianLong, 2018/11/9
• 曹文轩:写属于中国的童话故事          , China Youth Online, 2016/7/13
• Chinese Literature and a New Authenticity on the World Stage, Dennis Abrams, 24-Oct-16
• Translator Helen Wang Honored at Shanghai Children’s Book Fair, Porter Anderson, 21-Nov-17
• China’s Tomorrow Publishing House Signs New Copyright Contracts at the Bologna Book Fair, China Publishers Magazine, 27-Mar-18
• At Bologna: Winners Named in the Hans Christian Andersen and Asahi Awards, Dennis Abrams, 5-Apr-16
• Phoenix Publishing Presents the Publishing Journey of ‘Bronze and Sunflower’ by Cao Wenxuan, China Publishers Magazine, 26-Mar-18
• Macmillan Buys US Rights to Cao Wenxuan’s Latest Book from 21st Century Publishing Group, China Publishers Magazine, 27-Mar-18
• Little Sugarcoating in Cao Wenxuan’s Children’s Books, Amy Qin, 1-May-16
• Bologna 2108: A Talk with Cao Wenxuan, Publishers Weekly, 5-Apr-18
• Cao Wenxuan at Library of Congress Authorities, with 21 catalogue records, Library of Congress Authorities
• Cao Wenxuan: Chinese author wins top children’s literature prize, BBC, 5-Apr-16
• On being awarded the 2016 Hans Christian Anderson Award.