Cao Wenxuan is one of China's most important children's writers and is widely considered the country's most subtle and philosophical, often referred to as China's very own Hans Christian Andersen - and in fact he was awarded the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2016. He is a professor of Chinese literature at Peking University, and has in turn taught some of China's best young writers. Many of his books have been bestsellers, including Thatched Cottage and Red Gourd, and his work has been translated into French, Russian, Japanese, Korean, German and English. Cao has won several of China's most highly regarded awards for children's literature, including the Song Qingling and Bing Xin prizes.