Abstract

Qiu Xiaolong gains his fame as a Chinese-American writer and settles in St. Louis, working as a professor of Chinese literature at Washington University. He was one of the generation who went through the Cultural Revolution in 1970s, and went to college in 1980s. After graduation, Qiu flew to the United States to further his education. In the later 20th century, the American literary world has witnessed a series of revolutionary changes with Chinese American writers displaying their talent to the western world. Qiu began to publish his own English detective novels. The background is set in a typical period of time in Shanghai when the socialist economy is booming and some people are allowed to get rich first by Deng Xiaoping’s policy while others are still stuck in the past time. The image of China in Qiu’s detective novels is vivid and profound. This thesis is going to talk about the image displayed by Qiu mainly in three ways. The first in the main character, Inspector Chen, who is like a symbol of that period of China and has some shadows of Qiu himself. The second lays on the readers’ participation, both from home and abroad. And the last one is Qiu’s home memory, which gives birth to a real image of China.

Keywords: Qiu Xiaolong; detective novel; the image of China