Qiu Xiaolong

Qiu Xiaolong (Chinese: 裘小龙, Chinese pronunciation /tɕʰjoʊː ˌɕjɑʊˈlʊŋ/, American English pronunciation ; born Shanghai, China, 1953) is a crime novelist, English-language poet, literary translator, critic, and academic, who has lived for many years in St. Louis, Missouri. He originally visited the United States in 1988 to write a book about T. S. Eliot, but following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, he remained in America to avoid persecution by the Chinese Communist Party.He has published twelve crime-thriller/mystery novels as part of the Inspector Chen Cao series. These include Death of a Red Heroine, which won the Anthony Award for best first novel in 2001, and A Loyal Character Dancer. All books follow Shanghai Chief Inspector Chen Cao, a poetry-quoting cop who writes poems himself, and his sidekick Detective Yu. Alongside the plot, the major concern in the books is modern China itself. Each book features quotes from ancient and modern poets, Confucius, insights into Chinese cuisine, architecture, history, politics, herbology and philosophy as well as criminal procedure.