IN "RED MANDARIN DRESS," the fifth installment of his Inspector Chen mystery series, Shanghai-born émigré Qiu Xiaolong intersperses the narrative of gritty murders with glorious descriptions of Chinese food and captivating asides on Chinese classical literature and ancient history. He speaks with Tripmaster Monkey from his home in St. Louis, Missouri.

When you write about China, you often have to explain certain words or concepts, like guanxi or soup dumplings. What does this say about your audience?
I make a point not to explain these concepts in a blatant way. I try to describe it by having people talking about it. I think it helps my writing because it makes me show rather than tell.

Your most recent work is particularly gruesome. Have you any remorse in killing off so many young women? How do you get in the mindset to do it?
I think you're right that this one is different from my other books. Earlier, some even complained that not too many people died in my books. One possible reason this book is different—I'm not so sure about it—could be the memories of the Cultural Revolution that came flooding back to me—the cruelty and horror of it. So that reaction helped me get into mindset.

Your first three works were translated into Chinese, though your two most recent works have not. As part of the censoring process, Shanghai comes to be known as "H" City. What other changes were made? Did they compromise the work?
At the end of the first book, for example, the criminal is executed, but in the Chinese translation he has not yet been executed although he will be. The translation editors said to me, "You know, we are a legal society nowadays and we do not execute people so quickly." And I said, "Maybe you are talking about things nowadays, but my book is about the early '90s." They could not give me an answer for that.

Also in the first book, there is one particular old party official. He's not a negative character—he's just stubborn in his ways—but they cut more than half of the chapter (in which he appears). The reason? Because he's an old party official—and we shouldn't portray him in this negative light. I didn't even know about it until the book was published. It really made me hesitate about translation for number four and number five.

You've spent so much time with these characters, it must have felt like having someone tell you what your family was really like.
Right. It's not my book any more. It's really like my friends, my family. You definitely can say that.

What sort of response have you hoped for with your Chinese readers?
For example, my nephew and my niece, when they read "When Red is Black" and "Loyalty Character Dancer," they asked me a lot of questions about the Cultural Revolution. For instance, they had no idea what kind of dance the loyalty dance was. Nowadays, for them, dancing is something that people take for granted. In the school textbooks, the topic is still mostly banned. They had no idea that during those years people could only dance certain dances. They were totally confused by the concept of red and black during those years. They certainly know who Mao was, but how it was in those years … they have no clue. I expected their parents or teachers would have spoken to him about these things, but apparently they have not—or not enough. It's really a cold comfort to me because even with all the materialistic changes in China, at least some message is given to the reader about those years. I'm pleased with that.

On the topic of books, Chen and others often lament the miserable state of literature in contemporary China. They suggest that commercialism has filled that void once reserved for creativity and expression. What's your feeling?
I've been reading the contemporary Chinese works. Of what I have read, there are no masterpieces. I don't know why. Maybe it's just the situation of commercialism—people are just so busy and they can't focus on writing. Even in English to Chinese translation, the writing is bad, as it was with my books. But according to the Chinese edition editor, these translators only make 3,000 to 5,000 RMB a book and spend only one to two months doing it. In the past, when I was translating T.S. Eliot, the translator took two years and you ensured the quality. Now if you want the translator to put in two years, well, it's impossible. So what kind of job can possibly be done? The same thing can be said of the writers. I still have some Chinese writer friends and they are bothered with these issues. They have to write as many works as possible as quickly as possible in a way that pleases the market or they don't make enough money to make ends meet. That is certainly bad for the writer. Still, some Chinese writers are serious and earnest in their way. From a Chinese perspective, it's unfortunate that the meaning of literature must compete with the meaning of a (material) life. But when I tell the average Chinese I'm a poet, they almost think it's stupid.

You write your novels in English instead of Chinese—wasn't that also a decision determined by the market accessible to you?
Yes, after 1989, it was difficult for me to write in Chinese. I could write in it, but I could not have it published due to political problems. Nowadays my books have been published in China. Additionally, my Hanyu pinyin is not that great, so it's quite difficult for me to type. Back when I was a writer in China we did everything by hand, and you couldn't make too many changes or it was unreadable. When I left China in 1988, they had just come out with some kind of word processing machine. When I wrote in Chinese, however, I did it by hand and by fax.

In your books, China's tumultuous heritage often catalyzes the sins of the present. How long should history bear the burden of modern crimes?
It's an ongoing process. If you did something in the past, whether in the present or the future, you will bear the consequence. Nowadays the commercialism or the materialistic tendency is an ironical result of the Cultural Revolution. It might seem farfetched, but people were so disillusioned with politics because of the Cultural Revolution and the only thing they can see, they can touch is this material stuff. In terms of the political disillusionment—definitely it has something to do with events from the Cultural Revolution onwards through 1989. I went to France early last year, and some people talked to me about political idealism during the Cultural Revolution. I agreed with some of them that the ideas were good, but to China it was a political disaster. Now, it's understandable for the Chinese to simply want an apartment, to want a car, it's more tactile to them.

What significance does Shanghai have for you now, and how have those feelings evolved over time?
First of all, it's my hometown and it's the city of my formative years. I think nowadays, it's all quite interesting because when I come back to Shanghai, it's also not the city that I knew. Maybe it's like Proust: you try to find the new meaning in remembrance.

For your work on a new Inspector Chen novel, you revisited both Shanghai and Beijing this past year to research.
When I am in Shanghai I walk around and the memories come back to me. Some might not be usable for the book, but it's still energizing. I hadn't been back to Beijing since I left in 1988. I studied there in the late '70s and early '80s. Everything has changed dramatically. On this trip, I walked the route the Chief Inspector will walk on his route. This should be on the left-hand side, this should be on the right-hand side. I also researched some Chinese history, which will be a big part of the novel. Fortunately I can still focus on Yihuan (First Ring Road) since none of the others had yet been built yet in the era of which I'll be writing.

Chinese films have gained popular momentum in the States—any chance you'll adapt your books to a film? Who would you most like to see play Inspector Chen?
I'm certainly interested in doing that, and some people in the States have been talking to me about that, but nothing has been set yet. They spoke to me about an actor man named Liu Ye playing Chen, but I'm not convinced yet.

Ha Jin just released his first U.S.-based novel. Wang Jiawei just made his first non-China based film. Any chance you'll move away the China setting to write a completely U.S.-based mystery some day?
I don't see that in the near future. In "The Case of Two Cities," I already took my opportunity to pay tribute to St. Louis.

It's rare for Western audiences to meet a fictionalized male Chinese character that isn't a kung fu expert, an emperor or a triad boss. Do you intentionally seek to broaden people's scope and why?
Yes, that was something I tried to do from the very beginning. In one of my books, I say for the Western readers, the Chinese are only good at kung fu and kungpao chicken. Inspector Chen, however, is an intellectual, he can speak English, and he loves T.S. Eliot. You know in school, I read about Orientalism, so I was self-conscious about that. I did not want to write about Chinese characters with pigtails.

What Chinese characters would you most like to see make it in the mainstream in the next few years?
As varied as possible a group. It's very interesting to me this experiment going on in China right now and how people are adapting to change and I hope I can see more of these works whether in books or movies. It's not something isolated as before—the world is a part of this now.

What Chinese stories demand to be told now?
I sometimes see myself as someone between the inside and the outside. I no longer live in China though I come back regularly. I really hope for some good serious work written by writers in China that are more acceptable to a wider outside. Maybe the writers who have lived through all the change can tell the stories in their own voices.

Besides your series, what do you think about other manifestations of China's fictional depiction in the U.S.?
I read Ha Jin. He is a friend of mine. We often e-mail each other. I'm friends with Gish Jen as well. We write about different periods and different groups of people. Gish Jen writes more about ABC [American Born Chinese]. Ha Jin is writing about the '60s and '70s, and I'm writing about the '90s. We are not writing about the same thing even though we are all writing about China or Chinese people.

What's the best place for Chinese food in St. Louis?
There's really no good Chinese food in St. Louis. That's one of the reasons in the first book I wrote so much about Chinese food—it's a kind of compensation. Hopefully the Chinese restaurants in St. Louis won't read your interview or they won't be so happy with me.

What about in Shanghai?
My Chinese friends call me old-fashioned. They go to fancy new restaurants. I still go Lao Xi Men for Xiaolongbao.

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Megan Shank is a senior editor at the Chinese edition of Newsweek, Newsweek Select. She lives in Shanghai and, like Qiu Xiaolong, loves eating xiaolongbao.