Sheng Keyi is a contemporary Chinese novelist, short story writer, and artist.

Her works depict the real lives of China’s poor, the survival of its women, and situations revolving around the human spirit, written in a language that is violent, enthusiastic, and experimental. she has been reviewed and interviewed in international publications such as the New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, and LA Review of Books. She has been awarded many prizes, including the Chinese People’s Literature Prize, the Yu Dafu Prize for Fiction, the Chinese Literature Media Award and the Top 20 Novelists of the Future Prize. Her work has been translated into English and many other languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Russian, Czech, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

She has ten novels, include the novels Northern Girls, Death Fugue and Wild Fruit, as well as the novella Paradise and several short story collections. Northern Girls, published in English by Penguin in 2012, was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Death Fugue, banned for publication in mainland China, is a political allegory that “recalls Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World,” according to the New York Times, and “in a tradition that includes George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Philip K. Dick , Margaret Atwood and other keen critics of human folly,” according to the Washington Post.

Sheng’s three recent novels, The Womb, The Metaphor Detox Centre, and Maid’s Notes are part of a trilogy on the topic of women’s destinies. The Metaphor Detox Centre, however, remains unavailable in mainland China and was released by Taiwanese publisher Linking Publishing.