Shu Ting (pen name for Gong Peiyu 龚佩瑜) was born in Xiamen, Fujian Province, People’s Republic of China in 1952. Her formal schooling ended in 1969 when her family was sent down to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. After returning to her hometown in 1972, she took on a succession of different industrial jobs in factories around Fujian Province and began writing and publishing in small journals.

During the period of Opening and Reform in the late 1970s, Shu Ting began collaborating with poets who became collectively known as the 蒙胧诗派 (Pinyin: Menglongshipai), which means ‘Hazy’ or ‘obscure poetry school’ and is frequently translated as the ‘Misty Poets’, and included the writers Bei Dao 北岛, Mang Ke 芒克, and Gu Cheng 顾城.