Shanghai born and bred, Sun Wei is a former journalist, documentary filmmaker, and corporate general manager. She has published 23 books including novels, a novella collection and two short story collections.
Her novels have won dozens of awards, including the Excellence Award of Chinese Writers’ Erdos National Literature Award, Excellence Award Winner for Novella of Beijing Literature Excellence Awards for Literature Works. Her novel The Map of Time was a best-seller in China in 2017.
Both The Map of Time and Person in a Bottle are in the process of being adapted into TV series and movies by the director Zhang Yibai, who is a representative of sixth generation directors in China. Her short story Good Luck is in the process of being adapted into a movie.
As one of the Shanghai middle class, Sun Wei is acutely tuned to the many psychological issues of Chinese urban dwellers, and her works vividly reflect their loneliness, pride and sense of alienation. The tension and horror of contemporary life that Sun Wei’s fiction reveals has caused a sensation in recent years.
Sun Wei has set herself a target of writing 52 interconnecting stories that take place in different parts of the world. She’s already written nine and will be continuing this project during her residency in Aotearoa.