Real fruit in a surreal basket

Although she has worked closely with the mainstream entertainment industry, Xu Xiaobin, a CCTV screenwriter, thinks herself as detached from the center and takes "escaping" as the one of the enduring themes of her writing.

Escaping fate and family lineage permeates Feathered Serpent (1998), a thrilling and lyrical saga following the lives of five generations of women, beginning in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The book was translated into English by John Gibbon and published by Simon & Schuster in 2009. Its copyright has been sold in seven other languages.