From slums along Yangtze River Hong Ying finds endless inspiration

Hong Ying and her daughter Sybil rest in a bookstore in Italy in 2011. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

As the mother of a 10-year-old girl, her face brightens at any mention of her daughter.

"While I was pregnant, I started to read to my daughter, Sybil, some Chinese mythical stories. My daughter could talk about the protagonists in Journey to the West from a very early age, and now she can write far better than many of her peers."

This harmonious mother and daughter relationship reminds me of her estrangement with her mother. As she wrote in her first memoir Daughter of the River, "Age created a wall between Mother and me, above which grass and shrubs grew, taller and taller, until neither of us knew what to do about it. Actually, it was a slight, brittle wall that we could have toppled if we'd wanted to, except that it never occurred to us, at least not to me, to try."

She takes a deep breath when the conversation turns to her mother, sitting upstraight. She confesses that her attitude towards her mother changed a lot after she had her daughter.

"Only when you become a mother can you realize a mother's love and know what sort of parental treatment of children is revenge and protection when they are grown-up," she says, regretfully.

Hong's mother died one year before Sybil was born. When word of her mother's imminent death reached Hong Ying in London, she raced home to Chongqing but was too late.

"I had never thought that my mother would leave me. Until now, I will always reflect on rare tender moments when I stayed with my mother." Her voice trails off.

During our conversation, she often breaks the tension with boisterous, knowing laughter. She's familiar, too, in the best possible way as we sip green tea and snack on pine nuts. We check out her works in an online book store and she tells me how to differentiate her pirated editions with original ones. Her many books have been translated into more than 20 languages and different editions have particular covers.

Unlike many authors, the prolific author Hong Ying says she doesn't suffer from writer's block.

"I only need to go back to my hometown, Chongqing, and I will be inspired and create more stories."

She describes her hometown as a 'feminine' city, full of myths and ghosts, surrounded by an impenetrable aura of mystery.

"Chongqing is my foremost and only creation source. I lived there for more than 15 years. Local people's lifestyles, manner of speaking, the social changes of the city are literally immersed in my writing. I love Chongqing, in my own way, not like spoiling a kid."

Hong's Chongqing is not the city familiar to many. The center of the city is almost absent from her memoir which is largely confined to "the slum crowded on the hills of the southern bank".