Shen Dacheng

Shen Dacheng is a columnist, novelist, short story writer and editor. After graduating from Shanghai University in Industrial Management, she worked in marketing and then began a column (featuring short stories based on real characters' lives) called 'Strange People' in the literary publication Sprout. Real name Xu Xiaoqian, she takes her pen name from a popular Shanghai pastry shop. Her first collection The Ones in Remembrance was published in 2017. Her 2018 short story 'Miss Box Man' is set in a world of virus-induced fear, where the rich live in sealed containers which protect them from the pathogen, and the rest live a life of a constant, compulsory blood tests and hosings-down with disinfectant. She is currently working on a new collection to be titled Asteroids in the Afternoon.