Author hopes to make his own story

Exploring new styles, he believes, will help him conquer mediocrity, Yang Yang reports.

When I arrived at the bookstore where we agreed to meet, writer A Yi was snoozing in an armchair. I remember last time when we also met here, he told me his disease had damaged his lungs, so that walking fast while carrying several books would cause a shortage of breath.

That was nearly two years ago. We were here to talk about his book The Fraud Has Come to the South, a collection of hair-raising short stories published in April 2021, in which A Yi tried to set himself free as a writer, without limiting the length or topics of the stories. He also told me that he was working on his second novel, with much joy and freedom every day.

The novel is Weihunqi (Betrothed Wife), published by the People's Literature Publishing House in December.