An Yuan 安远
Novelist · Musician · Beijing
An Yuan is a Chinese writer and certified musician. His debut novel, The Dossier of a Half-Life (《半生档案》), is a semi-autobiographical work that traces thirty-five years of life in China—from 1990 to 2025, through suburban Beijing, the coal country of Inner Mongolia, the birth of the Chinese internet, and the silence of pandemic lockdowns.
The novel spans roughly 185,000 Chinese characters across nine volumes and seventy-seven chapters. It is, in his own words, the story of "a Chinese man who spent thirty years learning how to hide—and at fifty, decided to stop."
The Book
The Dossier of a Half-Life follows one man's journey from the outskirts of Beijing to the coalfields of Inner Mongolia, from factory floors to corporate offices, from first love to arranged marriage, from hiding to reckoning. It is not a coming-out story. It is an archival novel—a dossier of memory, desire, and the quiet violence of living unseen.
Full manuscript available upon request.
On This Site
- Five chapter excerpts from the novel
- Three original theme songs and an audiobook sample read by the author in Beijing dialect
- Dossier extras — fragment memories not included in the novel
About the Author
Born 1975 in Beijing. An Yuan writes under the name of his novel's protagonist—a name he chose because it sounds like someone who has walked a long road and, looking back, finds that nothing has disappeared; it is all filed away in some drawer of time and space. He is also a certified Tencent musician (stage name: 木林林), with four albums of original music.
He currently lives in Inner Mongolia. This is his only public platform.
Rights & Contact
Publishing rights (Chinese simplified/traditional, translation), film/TV adaptation, and collaboration inquiries are welcome.
top-lee@126.com