The queue for Lucy Caldwell's book signing at the 2026 Southern China Book Fair just kept growing.
It was so long, in fact, that it ran straight into the time slot for the next event at the venue. With readers still waiting, the Northern Irish author moved outside to another table and carried on signing, eventually running 30 minutes behind schedule.
Born in 1981, Caldwell writes novels, short stories, plays and radio dramas, often delving into women's lived experiences and the quiet complexities of human emotion. Her work has earned major literary honors, including the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the BBC National Short Story Award and the Walter Scott Prize.
In 2025, two of her short story collections, Multitudes and Intimacies, were published in China by Shanghai Translation Publishing House under the Chinese titles 《留在这个世界的理由》 and 《所有人都刻薄又邪恶》.
After the signing, South interviewed Caldwell about her writing craft: how she turns subtle emotions into vivid stories and her journey in China.
South: As a writer, how do you observe and remember the details and emotions of different people's lives, and represent them in your literary work?
Lucy Caldwell: It's a wonderful question. As a child, I think so many of us were told, "You're too sensitive, you're too emotional." As a child, I thought that this was very bad. But as a writer, I realize that it's my superpower to be sensitive and to be able to absorb other people's stories and complex emotions, and to translate them into stories.
I think the feeling is the most important thing. If you start with the feeling, the right details come to you like magic. I think the feeling is like the magnet, and the details are like iron filings. If the feeling is right on the page or on the screen, the right details come. Sometimes in a short story, you have to try out lots of details and try out too many details to choose what the perfect ones are. But if you concentrate on the story, time slows, and you have time to think, remember, research, and find exactly the right details.
Sometimes I take notes, and I think phones are very good for writers. You can take pictures or make notes very quickly. But usually, I trust that my imagination will take things in and supply the detail when I need it. Sometimes it's something remembered, sometimes it's something imagined, and in a story, you blur them. Sometimes I have a memory, and my sister says to me, "That isn't right; you've made that up." Sometimes the memory is stronger. So in a story, sometimes I don't know which details are real and which are made up. But I'm always looking for the detail that gives the truth of the story.
South: It is often said that "to write is to live twice." What is the difference between life in literature and life in reality for you?
Lucy Caldwell: This is a wonderful question. I think being a writer has nothing to do with awards, sales, translation, or even publication. That's all important. That's the business of it. But being a writer is some genetic, psychological, or spiritual quirk, whereby in order to best serve the world and understand the world, you have to remove yourself from it, sit in a room alone, and make it up. This is a very strange thing, and who knows why it's the case. But if you are a writer, you do not feel fully alive unless you are separating yourself from the world and remembering it or imagining it and turning it into words.
It's a very strange thing, but I often feel more alive when I'm writing than I actually do when I'm living. Sometimes life seems to happen too fast. Sometimes we don't understand in the moment what the significant, important moments are. Sometimes even the important moments just go by far too fast. Writing allows you to reenter, reexamine, revalue, and preserve some of those moments.
South: This isn't your first visit to China. You've previously visited Shanghai, right? What has your experience with Chinese readers been like?
Lucy Caldwell: Yes, I've been lucky enough to visit Shanghai and Nanjing. I was absolutely blown away by the readers I met, especially the young women. They were so smart, so keen, so eager. They seemed to me to be brimming with stories to tell. I think that China seems a very exciting place at the moment, and I'm looking forward to reading so many more stories by young Chinese men and women, and in particular, women.
South: How was your experience at the Southern China Book Fair and your time in Guangzhou?
Lucy Caldwell: It's been wonderful. The scale of it is huge, and it's in a city that has such a rich cultural heritage. Today, I was lucky enough to visit the Thirteen Hongs Museum and the Tomb of the Nanyue King. I was struck by the fact that places where cultural exchange happens always yield treasures. I was looking at some of the furniture, art, and precious things that were traded when Guangzhou first opened up as a port. I was thinking that where East met West and both spoke to each other, such beautiful things came out of that.
At a festival like this, you meet different writers. Yesterday I did an event with Wei Wei, who's a wonderful short story writer, and I had dinner with Chen Qiufan, who's a wonderful sci-fi writer, and we had such interesting conversations. I think this type of cultural exchange is as important now in the 21st century as it was in the old trading days.
Reporter | Chen Siyuan
