The Lao She Literary Award (Lao She wenxue jiang 老舍文学奖) is named after the Chinese novelist Lao She, a writer and activist of 20th-century Chinese literature. The award is awarded to a Beijing writer every two to three years, recognising literary excellence in novels, novellas, drama, film, television, and radio. It is sponsored by the Lao She Literature Fund which was founded in 1988. The prize was established in 1999, and was first awarded in 2000. It is Beijing's highest prize for literature and the arts, and is one of the four major literary awards in China, alongside the Mao Dun Prize for Literature, Lu Xun Literary Prize, and the Cao Yu Prize for Playwriting (曹禺戏剧文学奖).^[1]