Qualia Contemporary Art
229 Hamilton Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 656-9132
qca_info@qualiagallery.com www.qualiagallery.com
BIOGRAPHY
JIA PINGWA 贾平凹
b. 1952 in Shaanxi, China
Jia Pingwa is one of the most prominent contemporary Chinese writers and chairman of the Shaanxi Writers Association. He graduated from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Northwest University in Xi’an in 1975 and began publishing his works in 1974.
His Collected Works of Jia Pingwa spans 26 volumes. His representative novels include Turbulence, Ruined City, Qinqiang, Ancient Furnace, With the Lamp, Old Life, and Shanben. Major works of short and medium fiction include The Heis, Sky Dog, Five Masters, and The Backward-Flowing River. Among his best-known essays and prose are Notes from Shangzhou, Ugly Stone, and Dingxi Notebook.
Jia’s literary achievements have earned him numerous prestigious awards in China and abroad, including the Mao Dun Literature Prize, the Lu Xun Literature Prize, National Prizes for Outstanding Short and Medium-Length Fiction, and the National Prose Prize. Internationally, he has received the Mobil Pegasus Prize for Literature (USA), the Prix Femina Étranger (France), the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier), the “Dream of the Red Chamber” Prize (Hong Kong), the Chinese Literature Media Award, the Wang Molin–Zhou Anyi Chinese Literature Award (Peking University), the Shi Nai’an Literature Prize, the Contemporary Literature Award, and the People’s Literature Award.
Over fifty of his works have been translated into English, French, German, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other languages, and published in more than thirty countries.
Jia Pingwa regards calligraphy and literature as kindred arts. For him, calligraphy must convey “narrative, emotion, and a sense of depth,” serving as a medium of emotional expression rather than a mere showcase of technical skill. This view aligns with the literati tradition in Chinese art, which emphasizes cultural substance over formal perfection, echoing the classic ideal of “prioritizing meaning over form” in literati painting.
白眼觀塵世 金經養道心
Through white, detached eyes, see the mortal world; with golden scriptures, nurture the heart of the Way, 2025
Ink on xuan paper
67.25 x 70 cm, 26.5 x 27.5 in
Framed: 82.5 x 85.75 cm, 32.5 x 33.75 in
Detail: 白眼觀塵世 金經養道心 Through white, detached eyes, see the mortal world; with golden scriptures, nurture the heart of the Way, 2025