City and PrincessForeword for In London by Wenfen Chen-Malmqvist
In March 2017, Yilin Zhong sent me her latest novel, "In London", and asked me to write a foreword. I was surprised that she had finally finished revising the first draft of this novel, which we had discussed over email a few years ago. Yilin kept those letters of our discussion and different views on writing on this work, which was approved by the editor and was included in the appendix. As someone who read the first draft of the work very early, I must thank Yilin Zhong (or thank Juliet, the name of the protagonist of the novel). If the novel had not been finally completed, I would never know what 'Juliet' really thought.
Let me first explain how I met Yilin Zhong. A few years ago, I read a post on Weibo in which she sharply criticized the Nobel Prize-winning writer Gao Xingjian. At that time, her opinions mainly came from her professor of theatre at university. Gao is a writer who lives in Paris and writes in Chinese. After he won the Nobel Prize, many literature professors in China and the West did not take it seriously. They never took Chinese literature into account. To put it more directly, academic intellectuals like them may not have read many works by Asian and African writers. When a Chinese writer wins an award, they easily come to a sour grapes conclusion, "This writer writes specifically for the Nobel Prize judges." The situation is the same in Sweden. Asian and African literary works account for only 0.07% of the total publication volume in Sweden each year. The Swedish television station SVT, which reports "cultural news" every day, has hardly done any book reviews on Asian and African writers. But when the Nobel Prize is about to be awarded, they will use the big umbrella of freedom of speech to mock the Swedish Academy in a very sarcastic tone for not giving the prize to Africans, but they don't know that it is raining outside and that the wind and rain are created by themselves. I can only say that every language has its own difficulties in communicating deeply with foreign countries. Having said that, as a student, you must respect the lecturer's opinion, but as an author, it is best to read it yourself and not necessarily listen to the lecturer's opinion. Unfortunately, Gao's works are rarely seen by readers living in mainland China. If you can't find those works to read, you can only trust your lecturer. Not long after Mo Yan won the prize, Yilin requested to add me as a friend on Weibo. I thought she didn't like the Nobel Prize in literature, so I asked her directly. She answered: "But I like Mo Yan." Later, she sent me her works. I read her first novel, "Beijing, Beijing"(aka "Personal Statement"), and smiled. It was very interesting: her works were full of individualistic aesthetics, isn't this the aesthetic taste of Gao? Although she has not read many of Gao's works, their backgrounds are very similar. They are both drama majors and both authors who drifted to foreign countries. One lives in Paris, and one lives in London. (Excerpt from the Foreword)
About the Author:
Yilin Zhong is a British writer born in China. She began to write poem at age five and published it at seven. At sixteen, she published her debut novel which won her a national reputation as the youngest talented writer. Her autobiographical novel London Love Story is a #3 Amazon Bestseller, and Chinatown peaked at #1. Both her novels Personal Statement and In London were highly recommended by Swedish writer Wenfen Chen-Malmqvist, the late sinologist Goeran Malmqvist's wife, who wrote a foreword for In London but it was not published in China. By 2025, Zhong had written eighteen novels and had published ten books including eight novels, all of which became bestsellers and were sold out. She lives in London.
