Xu Xi is the author of seven books of fiction & essays, and editor of three anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English. A Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, the city was home until her mid-twenties, after which she led a peripatetic existence around Europe, America and Asia. She now inhabits the flight path connecting New York, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Awards include an O. Henry prize story, shortlist for the inaugural MAN Asian Literary Award, Cohen Award from Ploughshares for best story, a NYFA fiction fellowship, the South China Morning Post story contest winner, among others. She is currently the Visiting Bedell Writer at the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing program, and has  been writer-in-residence at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland, Kulturhuset USF in Norway, the Jack Kerouac Project of Orlando and the Anderson Center in Minnesota. She is on the prose faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing. Visit her website for more details. [Read]