Zhengrun Yang is a professor of Nanjing University, researcher of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Center for Life Writing, editor-in-Chief of Journal of Modern Life Writing Studies, Chairman of the Specialized Committee for Foreign Literature of Chinese Higher Education Association (2011-2014), as well as Vice President of The Biography Society of China (2007-2015). His main works include Footprints of Humanity, A Concise History of Literary Biography, A Modern Poetics of Biography, The Life of Shelley, The Rock and The Rainbow: Selected Essays on Life Writing by Zhengrun Yang, etc. He has edited Self-Portraits: Studies on Modern Chinese Autobiography and Nationality and A Dictionary for Appreciation of Foreign Biography.