, 27, tapping a slender finger on a pack of cigarettes. Banned in April, the ``semi-autobiographical'' story published in Chinese under the name Wei Hui focuses on an attractive young woman writer who lives with her Chinese lover while carrying on an affair with a married German businessman.
In spite of the ban it is not difficult to find copies of the book, which she says has hit a raw nerve in the ``collective insecurity'' of the Chinese society.
Zhou describes her generation as being on a bewildering quest for identity that has amplified the anxiety of contemporary Chinese, who have turned their back on old mores but are too frightened to embrace new ones.
``Things are changing too fast,'' Zhou said.
``Shanghai Baby'' was first banned in Beijing and several other Chinese cities before the State News and Publishing Bureau ordered the book taken off shelves across the country in mid-May.
The action, aimed at protecting impressionable young people from decadent influence, has only boosted the book's popularity.
Her publisher, Spring Breeze Press in the northeastern city of Shenyang, said about 110,000 copies of the book had been sold and the remaining 40,000 copies destroyed.
But pirated editions of the book are widely available -- copies could be found recently on sale at a kiosk on Shanghai's
Nanjing Road. The entire book can also be downloaded from several websites.
HENRY MILLER IS MY GODFATHER
Coco, the narrator of ``Shanghai Baby,'' declares in the opening paragraph that Henry Miller is her idol.
Zhou said as a college student she was attracted to Miller's bawdy language and bursts of energy when she read ``Tropic of Cancer'' -- a picaresque story of an American in Paris.
``Miller lives with gusto on the margin of a big city. That's the attitude I like.''
Zhou chose cosmopolitan Shanghai as the centre for her book because it gives young people more lifestyle choices than is possible in other Chinese cities, she said.
Perhaps the city's colourful past has also helped.
The port city was famous in the 1920s and 1930s as a finance centre as well as for its fashion, vice and wild night clubs. Prostitution, gambling and drugs completed a picture of extravagance and immorality that came largely to an end with Mao's 1949 Communist victory.
But the wild times have returned in the past 10 years, brought on by the city's rapid growth and reinvention of itself as a financial hub.
The city's restless energy finds expression in night life, fast cars, casual sex and drugs, all of which would have been tolerable, had she not crossed the line in teasing Chinese masculinity.
Coco loves Tiantian, a caring, sensitive and artistically gifted young man, but he is impotent.
At the same time, she lusts for Mark, a brutish blonde, who is all virility with a ``fascist'' streak.
Zhou, with four published books of fiction before Shanghai Baby, said she knew there would be a price to pay when she went straight for the taboos.
``I think my book arouses xenophobia in many Chinese.''
The censors moved belatedly to ban the book only after an outcry by some incensed readers, she said.
PRETTY YOUNG WOMAN WRITER
Chinese literary critics condescendingly put Zhou in the group of ``pretty young women writers,'' claiming the commercial success of their books was achieved through clever packaging and promotion.
Sloe-eyed and full-lipped, Zhou admitted to be narcissistic in her writing.
``I was looking for a voice, a voice of my generation,'' she said. ``The gap that divides those of us born in the 1970s and the older generation has never been so wide.''
A graduate from prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai, Zhou relishes her new role of being ``the most controversial writer of this generation.''
She looks forward to travelling abroad as her book will soon be published in Japan and France.
But Shanghai will always be the source of her inspiration, even though she is an outcast in her own city.
Zhou said Shanghai's local media have assiduously left her alone.
``The Shanghai cultural circle wants to present a sanitised image of the city,'' she said.
``They try to ignore me as much as they can.'' Reuters
Banned Chinese author brings Shanghai steam to US (2001-10-17)Chinese Censors Create a Star (2000-07-09)Racy ``Shanghai Baby'' stirs controversy, incurs ban (2000-06-02)3 (11285)
