作者简介： 　　jiang rong was born in jiangsu in 1946. his father's job saw the family move to beijing in 1957, graduating from the middle school attached to the china central academy of fine arts in 1966 　　his education cut short by events in china, the twenty-one-year-old jiang volunteered to work in inner mongolia's east ujimchin banner in 1967, where he lived and labored with the native nomads until the age of thirty-three. he took with him two cases filled with chinese translations of western literary classics, and spent eleven years immersed in personal studies of mongolian history, culture, and tradition. in particular, he developed a fascination for the mythologies surrounding the wolves of the grasslands, spending much of his leisure time learning the stories and raising an orphaned wolf cub. 　　following his return to beijing in 1978, jiang embarked on postgraduate studies in olitical science at the chinese academy of social sciences. jiang received a masters degree in law in 1982, and assumed an academic position at a beijing university. now retired, he lives in beijing, with his wife.