Xinran was born in Beijing in 1958 and was a successful journalist and radio presenter in China. In 1997 she moved to London, where she began work on her seminal book about Chinese women's lives, The Good Women of China. Since then she has written a regular column for the Guardian, appeared frequently on radio and TV and has published the acclaimed Sky Burial and novel Miss Chopsticks, the groundbreaking book of oral history, China Witness, as well as a book of her Guardian columns called What the Chinese Don't Eat. She lives in London but travels regularly to China. Her charity, The Mothers' Bridge of Love (www.motherbridge.org), was founded to help disadvantaged Chinese children and to build a bridge of understanding between the West and China.