Xu Yue was born in 1983 in Qingdao, China. He has previously spent many summers in Santa Monica while his mother Wang Chaohua, a protest writer from China, was teaching at UCLA. Xu Yue has suffered from depression for more than ten years. He initially quit college due to his depression, but ultimately returned to finish a degree in Chinese literature. He is currently working on his PhD in Literature at Beijing University. He has translated a play by Eugene O'Neill and poetry by Hart Crane. In 2010, Xu Yue published a novel.