Turn-up for the books

Like He, Bi Feiyu, author of Three Sisters and Massage, also focused on 40 years of progress and his personal experiences as a writer at the Shanghai fair.

Bi was 14 when the reform and opening-up process began. He recalls the days when he and his young peers discovered the new aesthetics of tight-fitting flared trousers.

"It was shocking for Chinese people who were used to hiding their figures under oversized clothes. This was my first gift from the reform and opening-up - to learn to be proud of our bodies, and proud of life itself," Bi says.

Seeing the works of more foreign literary masters on the shelves of his local Xinhua Bookstore was the next gift Bi received as the country continued to open up.

"I'd heard of Alexander Pushkin and Victor Hugo from my father, who was a teacher. On the day I got the chance to read them, I quickly realized the importance of spiritual dialogue - even with past masters - and how they could enrich your understanding of the world," he says.

"Writers like us are not only witnesses to the reform process, but are also a result of it," he adds.

At the Beijing fair, Jia Pingwa, a veteran writer born in 1952 and who debuted in 1974, joined in on a conversation about one of his works with its Spanish editor Elena Bazan, Italian translator Patrizia Liberati and English translator Christopher Payne.