In Never again Crazy like Wei Hui, popular novelist Zhang Yueran interviews the author — now a therapist — of that naughty, banned-in-China-at-the-turn-of-the-century novel, Shanghai Baby:
Zhang Yueran: Can you talk about your early works? There’s a lot in there that’s incredibly valuable.
Zhou Weihui: They can’t be all bad, I suppose, but they aren’t all that great, either. At least I get to make my own decisions about my own body, still looking back at Shanghai Baby, there’s a lot of guilt there.
To read the full interview (translated by Jack Hargreaves) at Granta, click here.
For a hatchet job targeting me for my translation of the novel, see Shanghai Baby’s Translator, Author Wei Hui and Abu Graib
For a host of multilingual links about Shanghai Baby, past and more current, click here.
Ethnic ChinaLit 
Hi Bruce,
Found the interview, the hatchet job, and discussion fascinating.
Nice to learn more about your unique life and world, much of it as a China-based translator and writer.
It’s not quite clear to me why your critic seems to have been so very angry.
mark
Mark Selden
http://www.markselden.net
Founding Editor (2004-24), The Asia-Pacific Journal http://apjjf.orghttp://apjjf.org/
Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn and the Lives of China’s Workershttps://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1468-dying-for-an-iphone. Haymarket Books 2020. Choice Academic Selection 2022.
A Chinese Rebel Beyond the Great Wall: The Cultural Revolution and Ethnic Pogrom in Inner Mongolia. University of Chicago Press 2023.
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As to why my critic “seems to have been so angry,” I addressed this — somewhat — in an interview I did back in the 2000s. The brief answer is that Chinese men were outraged at their portrayal. And then of course there is the tradition, among Chinese intellectuals, of disparaging a work of art by dissing the character of its creator(s), i.e., Wei Hui and I.
At any rate, in order to help take us back to the mindset when this storm in a teacup overflowed, I cite from that Q & A with me that was published sometime between 2007 and 2009:
It may be hard for English speakers in the West to imagine, but in China this book generated a lot of very heated discussion. Hard, I say, because most people outside China see the sex as mediocre, and the love triangle more as a literary prop than as a frontal attack on morality or a swipe at Chinese masculinity.
The China critics panned Shanghai Baby outright and labeled Wei Hui as just one of those pretty “chick-lit” authors using the “lower half of her body to write.” Interestingly, as I recall most of them spent as much ink decrying her lifestyle as the content of the book which, admittedly, was marketed as “semi-autobiographical.”
It was never perfectly clear why the book was banned, but the publisher was forbidden to publish or sell any more copies not long after it was launched. I never asked Wei Hui why she believed the book was banned. But one story I heard—I have no idea if this is true!—was that she had flown to Chengdu to promote the book, and was captured by a TV camera at the airport in a low-cut dress. The camera zoomed in on her ample cleavage, at which point she (is said to have) said: “I think every guy should have his very own Shanghai Baby!” Apparently this got back to Beijing, Wei Hui was condemned for promoting an immoral lifestyle, and her book was simultaneously banned in China.
The reaction among netizens was very heated indeed, and between 2000-2002 several thousands of messages were left on BBSs nationwide. It was striking how different the viewpoints, depending on the sex of the writer: Women were generally positive about the book, while many men took to something akin to ranting about it. In short, many men trashed the book, the writer’s lifestyle and went so far as to see Wei Hui’s depiction of Tian Tian, Nikki’s impotent boyfriend, as an insult to the Chinese Male.
To access the entire Q & A, go to: https://bruce-humes.com/2009/02/25/translator-interview-bruce-humes-and-his-shanghai-baby-%e4%b8%8a%e6%b5%b7%e5%ae%9d%e8%b4%9d-2/
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