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Writer Lawrence Block and his wife in Beijing. [Global Times] |
Chinese crime readers were thrilled to meet the creator of Matthew Scudder - acclaimed American writer Lawrence Block - last week in Beijing in a series of events with local writers, film directors and readers.
His best-known novel, Eight Million Ways to Die, was introduced to the Chinese mainland in 2006 by New Star Press, launching the "Midnight Series," a project bringing the world's best crime novels to China.
It became a bestseller on both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, bringing a new generation of hard-boiled school of fiction. Here, writers depicted their hero's often extra-legal efforts to search out the roots of corruption and to impose order on a lawless environment.
Chu Meng, deputy chief editor of the series, said mystery or detective fiction had not previously been very popular in China, where it was long considered cheap, "pulp" fiction by readers.
"Only with the arrival of Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr did readers understand more about Western murder-mysteries, not just Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie," he added.
Block, 72, is a prolific writer of more than 50 novel and the only three-time winner of the Edgar Award for Best Short Story, managing to juggle five different series characters without repeating himself.
His works are highly praised by many well-known figures in China, such as film directors Hou Hsiao Hsien, Kar Wai Wang, and Zhang Yibai, writer Chu Tien-hsin, and actor Tony Leung.
Block worked with Wang and Leung in My Blueberry Nights, which he wrote the script for. He even attempted to adapt a Scudder series with Leung but later failed to reach any deal.
Asked whether he has read any detective stories about China, Block admitted only to knowing the Tang Dynasty-set Judge Dee novels by Robert Van Gulik.
Block's Mathew Scudder series started in 1976, and currently totals 16, all published in the mainland, with the upcoming 17th book, A Drop of the Hard Stuff, scheduled for May.
"I like Mathew because Block not only shaped a tragic hero, but also gave him emotions. That's why [his] Taiwan publisher described Block as a troubadour amid New York's crime scene," said Xie Gang, president of New Star Press.
As opposed to detective writers Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler who helped create the "Golden Age" of detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s in which the protagonists never age or change, Block broke stereotypes in crime fiction.
"When I started writing about Mathew Scudder, it felt like writing properly for me about writing a person, and I felt sharing details of his life would enlarge the books and made them more interesting," he told audiences.
Writing about him for 35 years, he said he didn't expect Scudder to stop drinking, get older or start another relationship from the very beginning.
"One of the wonderful things about writing is that it is an organic process and full of surprises the writer winds up surprising themselves," he told audiences Saturday during a book talk with Zhi An, a Chinese writer and critic.