Food delivery rider and poet Wang Jibing has won one of China’s highest literary honors, the Lu Xun Literary Prize, for his poetry collection “Low Flight.” 

The prize, announced July 15 and in its ninth edition, honored 35 works across seven categories. The award was established in 1996 in memory of the renowned Chinese writer Lu Xun and is given every four years.

Wang, a 57-year-old from the eastern Jiangsu province, is known as “a delivery rider by day and a poet by night.” Since becoming a food delivery rider in 2019 in the province’s Kunshan city, he has logged over 150,000 kilometers on the road and written more than 6,000 poems inspired by his deliveries and life.

In recent years, grassroots writers like Wang have gained increasing recognition in China. They include former miner Chen Nianxi, whose poetry and nonfiction stories document the lives of Chinese workers; Yu Xiuhua, a former farmer whose candid poems dissect subjects such as love, desire, and living with cerebral palsy; and Hu Anyan, a former courier whose book, “I Deliver Parcels in Beijing,” details the strain of gig-economy work.

Another outlet is the Picun Literature Group, a collective of migrant worker writers based in an urban village on the outskirts of Beijing. In 2017, group member Fan Yusu’s autobiography, “I Am Fan Yusu,” became a nationwide hit.

“I made deliveries yesterday, and as long as I live in Kunshan, I’ll keep delivering food,” Wang said after receiving the award. He has previously said that food delivery had since become his “side hustle,” alongside literary events and book royalties.

“Low Flight” is Wang’s third published collection. For it, he interviewed more than 140 delivery riders in hopes that readers “would better understand the challenges they face.”

“Literature used to be like a pyramid, with everyone’s attention fixed on the few people at the top,” Wang told domestic media. “Now it’s turning its focus to the base, giving voice to the silent majority.”

Born into a rural family, Wang dropped out of middle school and worked as a construction laborer and trash collector, among other jobs, before becoming a delivery rider. A father of three, he now also runs a small grocery store with his wife.

Wang began publishing literary works in magazines in the 1990s before self-publishing on social media. In July 2022, his poem “Man in a Hurry” went viral on microblogging platform Weibo. His first poetry collection, “Man in a Hurry: Poems of a Food Delivery Rider,” was published the following year.

“Man in a Hurry” was inspired by a delivery in 2019, in which a customer entered the wrong address. Wang had to rush from the address entered in the app to the correct one, delaying his other deliveries and resulting in a financial penalty from the platform.

Wang has also said that he believes the positive reception sometimes stems from his label as a “delivery rider poet” rather than the poems themselves.

“Now, every type of publicity is tied to my identity,” he said in an earlier interview. “People automatically see your writing as coming from the bottom of society. They tend to read it with sympathy, or even pity. I’m grateful for the praise, but I take it cautiously because much of it isn’t purely about the literature. I know I still have a long way to go as a writer.”

An English translation of “Low Flight” is scheduled to be published by U.S.-based Chax Press this December.

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: Wang Jibing alongside copies of his poetry collection “Low Flight” in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, Feb. 26, 2025. VCG)