Mang Ke (original name Jiang Shiwei) was born in 1950 in Shenyang (Liaoning Province), his family moved to Beijing in 1956. Like millions of other youth he was made to work in a rural construction brigade during the Cultural Revolution. In the 1970s, back in Beijing, Mang Ke began to write poetry, becoming a representative of the "Misty Poets" group. In 1978 he was one of the co-founders of the literary journal "Today" (Jintian) that was regularly posted and sold at the Beijing Democracy Wall.

Later Mang Ke also wrote novels, in 1987 he co-founded a poetry club and another poetry journal. During the 1980s he received a scholarship by the French government to spend some time in France, and he was regularly invited to international literary meetings. After 2002 he also started to paint, he now lives with his family in the Songzhuang "artists' village" 50 kilometers east of Beijing.