Novel weaves Chinese and Western elements

Chinese-Canadian writer Chen He weaves stories he saw, heard and experienced into his most recent novel Red, Black and White, which portrays the struggles of Chinese in France and Albania. He combines exotic elements with characteristic Chinese stories to create an expansive canvas painted with pain, fear, love and repentance.

In the novel, protagonist Xie Qing travels from China to France in search of the mystery behind the death of his wife, who had left him without notice three years ago and is killed in a car accident. The search unfolds a series of dirty deals and transforms Xie from a loser into a successful businessman.

Chen had served in the army and worked in a State-owned enterprise before becoming a professional writer. In 1994, he gave up writing to be a businessman in Albania and in 1999, he settled in Toronto, Canada.

His 2010 novel Sarawak, about a Chinese-Canadian soldier who is trained as a spy and is killed on a mission in Sarawak, Malaysia, won the Yu Dafu Literature Prize for Novels.