YE Xin said he had almost exhausted his knowledge of Shanghai while writing his latest book, "Hua Du".

The 400,000-word novel, the longest among all his 24 novels so far, opens with a sociologist trying to investigate the death of a famous hostess at a local radio station who then gets himself tangled up in the affairs of three women living in an apartment building called Hua Du.

In the book, Hua Du is a century-old mansion standing in the city's bustling Bund area.

"Hua Du is an epitome of Shanghai," Ye said, during an interview in his Shanghai Writer's Association office, where he is the deputy chairman.

By telling this building's history, and the fate of the people living in it, Ye intended to tell the story of Shanghai over the last century.

Confident as he always is, Ye believed the book would sell well even though there are already critics questioning aspects of it, especially the necessity of its many sex scenes.

Self-study

Born in October 1949 in the wake of National Liberation, Ye experienced the half-century during which China saw its most compressed period of change.

Like many other Shanghainese of his age, he spent his childhood in a tiny longtang apartment, with new clothes only once a year at the time of the Spring Festival, a morning collection of "nightsoil" (no one had their own toilets), and during the leanest years, between 1959 and 1962, perennial hunger.

Despite all these difficulties, Ye also has some good memories of the old days, most of which involved books.

"I never stopped reading even during the most difficult times, when all schools were halted for the 'cultural revolution' (1966-76)," he said.

At the end of 1966, the year when Ye was to transfer from junior middle school to high school, the "cultural revolution" started.

"During this time when slogans and posters filled every corner of the streets and when continuing study was such a taboo, all I could do was remain silent," Ye said in his autobiography "Half-Century Life".

It was also during those years that his decision to be a writer became firm.

"Writing was my interest and compared with other subjects, it seemed to be an easier topic for self-study," Ye said.

Fortunately, he had many friends in the same camp. They exchanged books among themselves. "When I found chapters I liked, I copied them down. On many occasions I spent days and nights copying," he said.

"Friends were very helpful. When I told them about certain books I wanted to read, they would ask people they knew to help me find and borrow them."

Rustication

In 1970, after three years' fruitless efforts to continue his schooling, Ye became one of the 670,000 young Shanghainese sent to the countryside, following the instruction of Chairman Mao saying urban youth should go to rural areas to support the construction there and to better understand peasant life.

Ye had been idealistic about these orders when they first arrived. He remembers the date: March 31, 1969. "I was excited as I thought maybe I could do something for the country."

It took two days by rail to reach his designated village, Shaguozhai in Southwest China's Guizhou Province, about 2,500 kilometres from Shanghai. But it took an even shorter time to shatter his illusions.

"Everyone was shocked by how poor the farmers were when we saw what they had to eat and wear," he said. The dwelling Ye was assigned had no roof, so he covered it with grass, but he was still better off than the poor villagers, many of whom didn't even have shoes in the coldest days of winter.

"I went from the original excitement and idealism all the way down to disillusionment and depression after seeing the impoverished and secluded countryside. I went through much serious thinking about my dreams and the reality," Ye said.

"It took quite a long time before I re-collected myself.It was not until years later that I realized how important all this painful thinking was to me."

Ye's dream of being a writer was not shaken by his days in the countryside. Rather, it became even more real.

There was no typewriter, no electricity and no table in the small dormitory where he lived, so he worked in longhand, by the light of an oil lamp, using the end of his bed as a desk. Life was hard, but at least he had no shortage of material to write about. Almost every evening, when other urban youth went to sleep after a day of hard labour, he went to sit with local families and join in their conversations.

"When I first arrived at Shaguozhai, I had never thought I would spend 11 years there - working as a farmer in the fields," Ye said in his autobiography.

"During these years, I thought, worked, strived and felt, while trying to write down all my experiences everyday... My little experiences during the 11 years might have been trivial when compared with what was going on in the wider world, but they were truly mine. I won't discard them and I will write about them all."

In 1977, Ye was able to publish his first book, "Gao Gao De Miao Ling" (The High Miao Mountain Ridge), which spread his name beyond the confines of the remote village. But what really built his fame was the novel "Cuo Tuo Sui Yue" (The Years Drift By).

This book, published in 1982 was based on the true, tragic love story of two young urban intellectual who were sent to the same village during the "cultural revolution". Ye changed the story, giving it a happy ending. The book touchingly described the pains, miseries and hesitation of its young characters, winning great acclaim and empathy from those who had similar experiences. The book was later adapted into film.

"The 11 years spent in the countryside helped me to acquire two perspectives when looking at life," Ye said. "One was a metropolitan perspective, when looking at the remote and primitive countryside, and the other was the countryside perspective when looking at urban life."

A masterpiece of his unique two-perspective style was the novel "Nie Zhai" (Sinful Debts). It told a story about several children from a rural village in Yunnan who came to Shanghai to look for the parents who had abandoned them in the countryside after gaining a chance to return to the city.

The book was also a great success. The TV series adapted from the book attracted 43 per cent of the TV audience when it was broadcast, breaking the record for Shanghai TV dramas.

Urban return

In 1990, Ye returned to Shanghai after being assigned his post with the Shanghai Writers' Association and becoming editor-in-chief of a local magazine.

In 1993, he was elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress.

"He impressed me a lot with his honesty," said Gan Guanghua from the Congress.

"Despite his good reputation as one of China's most famous and prolific writers, the education attainment he wrote on his resume ended with junior middle school."

It would be quite easy for him to attain a diploma as an honorary MA or even PhD in the arts from a local university, and many other officials do exactly this, Gan said.

Ye's work with the Writers' Association, magazine and Congress occupies much of his time, but it also helps him to better understand society and thus enriches his writing.

He has already started working on another novel.

"This next book tells the story of a young man from the countryside who manages to enter a university in Shanghai," Ye said.

"It explores how he integrates into urban life, which is so different from that of the countryside, and also how he copes with the hidden discriminations from his urban classmates."

The novel will be in diary form. Like many other novels by Ye, it too intertwines his knowledge of both China's countryside and its cities.