Switching gears

Xu Lei becomes scriptwriter for Time Raiders, a new film based on his series of novels. Xu Fan reports.

Deemed as one of China's earliest novelists to usher in a boom in "tomb-robbing" literature, Xu Lei is polishing a new identity now.

"My ambition is to compete for an Oscar, not a Nobel Prize," the 34-year-old author, more familiar by his pseudonym Nanpai Sanshu, tells China Daily in a recent interview.