Bi Feiyu (Nanjing/China) and Li Dawei (Pasadena/USA)

Host: Frank Meinshausen (sinologist, Munich)

Bi Feiyu was born in the province of Jiangu in 1964. He now lives in Nanjing. He studied Chinese literature in Yahnzhou and taught as a lecturer for five years before working as a journalist and author. Since the mid-1980s he has published three novels and a number of volumes of stories and poetry. In 1995, he received the Lu Xun Award for Literature. In his novel, Moon Opera, the protagonist Xiao Yanqui has to abandon her career as a singer, because she sprayed a rival hot water in her face. Twenty years later she is given a second chance: the same opera, the same role. Xiao has apparently learned from her mistakes, but being both ambitious and a perfectionist, she still has to face some hard tests: her pupil threatens to outdo her.

Li Dawei was born in Beijing in 1963. He studied American literature at the College of Education in Beijing. On passing his final examinations in 1985, he began to publish poetry under the pseudonym Weiwei. In 1987, he participated in an international exchange programme for young authors, which took him to the USA for the first time. Since the late 1980s, Li Dawei has published works as a novelist, critic and essayist. In 1996, he published his first novel "Dream Collector". He has been living in the USA since 2001, where he works as an interpreter and freelance author.