Tie Liu, a writer from the coastal city of Qingdao in Shandong Province, has won the National Excellent Reportage Award of the 6th Lu Xun Literature Prize, one of China’s most highly-recognized prizes, for his book on non-governmental education in China.

The book was co-authored by Xu Jingeng, chief of People’s Daily Shandong Branch, the prize’s jury announced in Beijing on August 11.

The award-winning book, titled “A Study of Non-governmental Education in China”, analyzed both the positive and negative side of running a school by individuals or private entities, the difficulties and problems non-governmental education faces and options for its future development.

The jury unanimously agreed that Tie and Xu’s reportage explored and illustrated a major topic in contemporary social life in a report without losing literariness.

“I hope that this book can provide valuable information for people who want to know about non-governmental education,” said Tie Liu. “Policy support and public attention is necessary for its future development.”

In addition to Tie’s achievement as the first Qingdao writer to have won the honorable prize, Geng Linmang - a consultant from the Qingdao Writer’s Association – and Zhu Ziqiang - professor of Ocean University of China - have received nominations in the National Outstanding Poetry Awards and National Outstanding Literary Review Awards respectively.

The Literature Prize – which is named after the great Chinese writer Lu Xun – awards the best writers in seven categories including novellas, short stories, reportage, poetry, prose and essays, literary review and literary translation.