Aolie Zhang graduated from the Beijing Luxun Institute of Literature in 1983 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Department of Chinese, Beijing University, in 1988. He worked as an editor/writer at Guangdong Provincial Writers' Association from 1978 to 1991. From 1994 to 2004 he served as editor and deputy editor-in-chief for the Independent Daily and the Oveseas Chinese Daily. He has held membership of the China Writers' Association and served as Deputy Secretary General of Guangdong Provincial Writers' Association.
Zhang has received numerous awards in China, Australia and Taiwan including the Zhuang Zhongwen Literary Award in 1988, the First Guangdong Award for literary criticism in 1985, the Award for Excellent Chinese-Australian Writers in 1994 and the Award for Excellent Fiction in the Overseas-Chinese category for the Overseas-Chinese Union, Taiwan, in 1997.
Since 1990 Zhang has published several works of criticism on and interviews with Chinese writers both in China and Australia. His plays 'Beating Him at His Own Game' and 'A Teenage Girl' were performed on radio for the SBS Chinese program in 2002 and 2003 respectively. A reading of his prose work 'Dream of Europe' was broadcast on Radio 2AC's Chinese Program in 2003.
