Lu Min, Nanjing — Chinese Fiction & Universal Truths

Lu Min, Nanjing — Chinese Fiction & Universal Truths

From Paris Calling by Worldcrunch

December 15, 2025 · 18 min

About this episode

Lu Min discusses her journey as a novelist and the impact of China's modernization on her work.

Lu Min is an award-winning Chinese novelist, best known for such works as Dinner for Six , This Love Could Not Be Delivered and The Man Who Could Not Die , which have been translated into a dozen languages, bringing her perceptive eye and an authentic Chinese perspective to readers around the world. Born in the countryside of Jiangsu Province, she cycled through jobs as a post office clerk, journalist, accountant, and secretary from the age of 17, only later realizing — through quiet moments spent observing the lives of others—that writing was her true calling. Speaking with Paris Calling from the eastern city of Nanjing that she now calls hom, Lu traces how her writing journey has unfolded alongside China’s modernization since the 1970s, and explores what the “impossibility of dying” means in today’s rapidly evolving AI era. This is Paris Calling , where each week we encounter a notable person from somewhere around the world. We are breaking new ground by bringing non-English interviews into English with the use of Al tools that allow us to translate our guest’s words, without changing their voice. Founded in 2011, Worldcrunch is a pioneering global news outlet that brings the…

People in this episode

Host: Paris Calling

Guest: Lu Min

Topics covered

  • Chinese literature
  • modernization
  • AI era
  • novel writing
  • cultural perspective

Keywords

  • Chinese novelist
  • literature
  • Nanjing
  • AI
  • cultural insights

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Worldcrunch

Books & works: Dinner for Six, This Love Could Not Be Delivered, The Man Who Could Not Die

Places: Nanjing, China

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