Cheng was born in 1955 in Wuhan, Hubei. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Sun Yat-sen University. He used to be the vice president of China New Literature Society, Guangdong Writers Association, Guangdong Critics Association and the editorial board of Academic Research magazine. He is one of the influential young and middle-aged experts in the field of modern and contemporary literature research in China. By the time of his death, he had trained 33 doctors and masters for the country. His undergraduate thesis was selected as the national excellent undergraduate thesis, and his graduate thesis was selected as the master's library of social sciences in China. Several doctoral theses he directed have also been well received by academic circles and are being published one after another.