Author provocateur

Chen Xiwo, whose works often tend to be interpreted as erotic and violent, might actually be a closet romantic, as Chitralekha Basu and Sun Li discover.

Even as he looks to get feedback on The Book of Sins, a collection of seven novellas (translated into English by Nicky Harman and recently published by Forty-six Books in the United Kingdom and in Hong Kong), Chen Xiwo is equally keen to talk about being a writer in present-day China.

Chen, 52, is the first Chinese writer to become a part of Leeds University's Writing Chinese project that attempts to showcase distinguished Chinese literary voices in the UK.