Yilin Zhong

Yilin Zhong was born in China. Her father was a literary editor at China Federation of Literary and Art Union in Beijing, however was exiled to southwest China as miner during the Cultural Revolution. Zhong wrote her first poem at five which was published when she was seven,[3] and her first short story was published at the age of twelve in Shanghai Youth Literature. At thirteen, she wrote a research thesis 'Who broke up the wood-stone engagement?' and it was released in the academic journal A Dream of Red Mansions Journal[4] in 1993.

At fourteen, Zhong wrote her first full-length novel Embracing the Sun, which was not published, and then her second novel Sunshine and the Monsoon at sixteen, which was published in 1995 and won her national reputation as the youngest talented writer;[5] Zhong was interviewed by China Central Television's Book Review.[6] In 1992 Zhong received an Award voted by national readers, for a short story released in Shanghai Youth Literature, as the 'Best Work of The Year'.

At the age of sixteen, Zhong s decided to go to the Central Academy of Drama and study Drama Literature and Play Writing, while she also passed the exam for the Play Director department.[1]

She was educated in The Central Academy of Drama at Beijing, China, and achieved a distinction BA degree in Drama Literature and Playwriting.

In 2002, Zhong came to the UK and achieved her MA degree in Cultural Studies from the University of Warwick.[7] Afterward she immigrated to the UK and has been living in London.[2]

Yilin Zhong started her creative literary writing when she was five. In 1995, she published her first novel Sunshine and the Monsoon]].[8] In 1996 she was interviewed by the China Central TV Station's Book Review program as its youngest writer interviewed, and was called 'hugely successful and notable'.[9] From 1995 to 2002, while Zhong was in Beijing, she worked for Beijing TV station, Beijing Broadcasting station and various magazines and newspapers,[10] published five books, including three novels, one essays and one short stories collection.[9] Meanwhile, she also became a successful journalist[11] and received a National Award for her exceptional contribution on reporting the IT technology blooming in China. Zhong wrote a film script 'Sunshine and the Monsoon' (adapted from her own novel) at the age of nineteen and won the Excellence Award for Chinese Youth Film Script in 1996. Her translation work 'In a Station of the Metro'(Ezra Pound) was collected into Chinese national high school's Literature Textbook[12] and Chinese universities' textbook for American Literature.[13] Her letter to editor was published in 'One person's Literary History'(by Cheng Yongxin, Editor-in-chief of Harvest Literary Magazine) as one of writers' documentaries in contemporary Chinese literature.[14] Before coming to the UK, Zhong was one of notable contemporary women writers in China,[15] and belonged to the 'Post 70s Generation' writers.[16]

London Single Diary(2009) was her first series written in the UK and published in China. The twin work London Love Story was bpublished in 2010. Her novel Chinatown(written in 2005 at London) was released in 'Harvest' in 2011, which gathered American Chinese writer Ha Jin, British Chinese writer Yilin Zhong, and Taiwanese writer Qi Bang Yuan's works as a 'Special Issue of Oversea-Chinese Writers', and sold out in three months. Zhong attended the London Book Fair in 2012 and met many Beijing writer friends, such as the Vice Editor-in-chief of People's Literature and Pathlight magazines, whom recalled their friendship in Beijing in his published London Diaries.[17] Zhong also wrote London theater reviews for Chinese newspapers and National Drama Study,[18] and was cited by Shakespeare beyond English published in the UK.[19] In 2013, her novel Personal Statement(written in 2000 at Beijing) was published in Shanghai.

In 2013, Zhong joint a reality dating TV show of Channel 4 and appeared on First Dates as herself. This was her first public appearance in the UK and she became the TV advertising model in its first season.[20] In 2014, Harvest published the Kindle version of Chinatown;[21] then the paperback edition was published in 2015, and was appraised to have filled the 'remarkable blank space of illegal immigration in contemporary Chinese literature history' (Editor's Review).[6] In March 2015, Yilin Zhong had her first interview since 2002 with Harvest literary magazine for her new book Chinatown, and the interviewer recommended that 'one of this literary work's very great significance', is that 'it has changed our understanding of the world'.[21]

In 2015, Zhong took a trip to New York, and then began to write her first novel in English: Dear New York,(1-4); Book 1-3 were written between Dec 2015 and March 2016 in London, and Book 4 was completed in May 2016 in New York. She also sketched a new fiction Miss China and a non-fiction Folks of New York at Manhattan, and then wrote her first collection of poems in English after coming back to London in the fall of 2016. In October 2017, Zhong wrote her latest fiction The Private Scene as the third book of the personal statement trilogy, which was a derivative work of the second book of the trilogy, In London. The novel In London was written in 2005 in London and was published in February 2018 in China, having an unpublished foreword written by Wenfen Chen-Malmqvist, plus a few thousands words relating to political events were deleted due to the publishing censorship in China.[22] Up until 2018, Zhong has published ten books including eight novels, and nine sold out.[23] From 2017, Zhong began to write her column The London Scene for Southern Weekend newspaper, her first column in Chinese media.[24]

• Yilin Zhong on Sina Weibo (in Chinese)
• Yilin Zhong on Sinablog