Xu Xi

Xu XiXu Xi is the author of eight books of fiction & essays, and editor of three anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English. A Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, the city was home until her mid-twenties, after which she led a peripatetic existence around Europe, America and Asia. The New York Times once named her a "pioneer writer from Asia in English" and the Voice of 'America' featured her on their Chinese TV documentary series "Cultural Odyssey". Awards include an O. Henry prize story, the shortlist for the inaugural MAN Asian Literary Award, the Cohen Award from Ploughshares for best story, a NYFA fiction fellowship, the South China Morning Post story contest winner, among others. She has also been writer-in-residence at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland, Kulturhuset USF in Norway, the Jack Kerouac Project of Orlando and the Anderson Center in Minnesota. SUNY Plattsburgh, where she earned her BA, accorded her its distinguished alumni award in 2004. In 2009, she was the Bedell Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Iowa's nonfiction program. Her MFA (fiction) is from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. For eighteen years, the author had a parallel career in international marketing and management with various multinationals. In 1998, she finally surrendered completely to the writing life. In 2009, she was elected faculty chair at Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing, the first woman, ethnic minority and foreign-born U.S. national to hold the position. In March, 2010, she became the first Writer-In-Residence at the English Department of The City University of Hong Kong, overseeing a new, international, low-residency MFA program that specializes in Asian Writing in English.