Fei Dao (the name should be treated as a single indivisible unit) is the pen name of Mr. Jia Liyuan. Born in 1983 in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China, Fei Dao received his Ph.D. in Literature from Tsinghua University. Later, he pursued research at Beijing Normal University before returning to Tsinghua to teach. In 2017, he began to offer a new course in Tsinghua on writing science fiction. Currently, he also serves as the executive director for Tsinghua’s Center for Literary Writing and Research.
He is the author of short story collections Innocence and Its Fabrications, The Storytelling Robot, Chinese Sci-fi Blockbusters, and The Long Journey to Death. Previous publications in translation include Italian and English editions of “A Story of the End of the World” and “The Demon’s Head.” He has also been published academically in journals such as Science Fiction Studies, Literary Review, Contemporary Writers Review, Dushu, and Comparative Literature in China.
Many of Fei Dao’s stories straddle the line between fantasy and science fiction, and play with history as well as futurism. “The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales” is a Calvinoesque fable that explores the sense of wonder beating in the chest of every fictioneer.