周李立，女，1984年3月出生于中国四川。她18岁开始到北京求学、生活、工作。大学就读于中国人民大学新闻学院广播电视专业，求学期间更喜欢真实的影像作品，拍过纪录片，毕业后当了11年国家公务员，目前在出版社做图书出版工作。2008年4月周李立的父亲去世，5月四川发生大地震，在这两件事的冲击下周李立开始写小说。2008年，她开始在文学期刊发表小说，10年来她发表中短篇小说近百篇，共计一百多万字，曾获《小说选刊》奖、百花文学奖等多种文学奖项，出版有《欢喜腾》《透视》等多部小说集，小说《天使的台阶》被翻译成日文发表。

　　因为她认为“人与人之间的隔阂无法消除，交流沟通大多无效，现代社会中所谓真正的理解是极难实现的”，所以，她笔下的人物多是陷身于孤立无援并独自挣扎的处境。周李立的作品多以北京等大都市为背景，描述当下都市人群的种种孤独，叙述冷静克制收敛。在艺术追求上，周李立善于另辟蹊径，同样的题材，同样的故事似乎总能在她的笔下以特别的角度进入。

　　《去宽窄巷跑步》被认为是周李立的代表作，这是一篇“以短篇建制完成中长篇容量”的冰山之作，三代女性群像在她们的无法沟通的隔阂与不解中完成。在她的另一篇代表作《八道门》中，初入京城住进高档小区的单身男人，尝试过一种自己无力负担的奢侈生活，经历着高档小区赋予他的虚假的身份标记，以及随之而来的虚浮及幻灭，被认为是“中国文坛上，80后终于来了”的信号，以及“与这个时代有着天衣无缝的对接能力”，“在与现实的交锋中能找到恰如其分的话语空间”，“真实地呈现了年轻一代的内心体验”。她的“艺术区”系列小说，在她本人的小说创作中较有代表性。“艺术区”系列小说，以十几篇中短篇小说近20万字的篇幅，刻画了一组当代青年艺术家群像，并以北京艺术区为窗口，透视所谓名利场的灰暗或不堪等种种现实，被评价为“比年轻的同代人老成练达，比上一代作家更具超前的中产阶级的焦虑无聊乃至误解，又褪去了女作家的性别色彩，成为一个独立性强、辨识度高的存在”。

　　周李立

　　Zhou Lili

　　Chinese writer Zhou Lili was born March 1984 in Sichuan. At 18 years of age, she moved to Beijing to study, live and work. She studied radio and television at the School of Journalism at Renmin University of China. Developing a preference for factual pieces, she shot a number of documentaries, and after graduating worked in the civil service for 11 years. Currently, Zhou works in publishing. In April 2008, Zhou’s father passed away, and shortly after the Wenchuan Earthquake occurred. The culmination of these two events spurred Zhou to start writing. In 2008, Zhou started to publish fiction in literary magazines. Over the past 10 years, she has published nearly 100 short stories and novellas, totaling over one million words. Zhou has received a number of literary awards, including the Fiction Selections Prize and Hundred Flowers Literary Prize, has published many short story collections including Joy and Perspective. Her novel Angel’s Stairway was translated for publication into Japanese.

　　According to Zhou, “Alienation between people cannot be bridged, and communication in many cases has little effect. This makes it very difficult to for people to truly understand each other in modern society.” As a result, helpless people and their struggles feature prominently in her writing. Her stories are often set in major cities like Beijing, allowing her to explore the loneliness of urban life. Zhou’s expertise lies in her ability to tell ordinary stories from unique perspectives.

　　Jogging in the Alley, considered one of Zhou Lili’s representative works, tells of the alienation of three generations of women. Eight Doors, another of her important stories, is about a single man who moves to an upper-class community in Beijing in an attempt to live a life of luxury he has no means to sustain. Zhou’s Artistic Series is another of her important works. Nearly 200,000 words in length, the series is made up of over a dozen short stories, each depicting a group of young contemporary artists in Beijing’s art scene and its Vanity Fair. Zhou’s writing has been praised as showing a wisdom beyond her years, and expressing the anxiety, boredom and misunderstandings of the middle class better than the previous generation of writers.