As a writer you pour so much of yourself into your character and novel, how much of Yuliang is you? 

That's a great question. I was actually just talking to a friend who's a memoir writer now beginning her first novel, and she was saying how daunting it was to have to leave "real life" for the first time. The funny thing for me, though, was that I really wasn't leaving "real life" so much as trying to find points of empathy and life-experience intersections with Pan's life and my own in order to better understand her. And to my surprise, there were a lot. Obviously, I've never been a prostitute, can't paint, and didn't live in pre-Revolutionary China. But the struggle to become an artist against seemingly insurmountable odds was something I could relate to. The importance (and drawbacks) of sharing your life with another person or people as an artist; the necessary selfishness that is key to working, was something else. The creative process itself was also something I found I could relate to somewhat; the insecurities, euphoria’s, and oddly (but necessarily) obsessional elements that help you start something seemingly impossible, and see it through.  

It's hard to come up with an exact formula of how much of the character I created is myself, thinly veiled (or perhaps painted over). But it was enough that after my husband read the last draft from start to finish he totally started laughing. "You've totally turned her into yourself," he said. (I still haven't figured out if that was a compliment!) 

You hit on some pretty heavy subjects in the book such as the Chinese tradition of binding a woman’s feet, prostitution, and communism. All of which a huge part of Yuliang’s story, but was it hard to balance?   

It was — particularly the prostitution, as in the past (at least in Asia) it was this rather than her actual art that dominated people's impressions of Pan Yuliang. I was very focused on trying not to do her the same disservice; I didn't want to write about prostitute who could paint. I was trying to get into what kind of a woman could escape prostitution, transcend it, and then go on to create such extraordinary work despite that horror in her past. And to try to see — if I could — how the trauma of the brothel went on to shape her development as an artist. So that part was particularly hard for me; I think I ended up cutting out about five further chapters on the brothel section because I didn't want them to overshadow the more important part of her story — about her art.    

What kind of response has The Painter from Shanghai gotten from the overseas markets? 

It's still early days in terms of publishing; it came out in the UK in April and only just came out in Holland. After that it will appear in (so far) Spain, Italy, Brazil, Poland, Germany, Vietnam, Romania, Russia, and Serbia — so certainly, overseas publishers (outside of France, for some reason) have been very receptive.  In terms of sales it seems to be doing well in the UK considering the market, although not much review attention for some reason. I do self-Google on occasion (well, maybe on many occasions) and interestingly enough, the foreign markets the UK publisher controls — Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, India — all seem to be responding really enthusiastically. I got terrific writeups in the South China Morning Post, the Tsing Tao, the Indian Express and the Malaysian Star, for example; and there seem to be a lot of overseas Chinese teens chatting about me on their blogs. Which is fascinating and — at times — really bizarre to read; I really never saw myself as writing for that audience (who am I to tell a Chinese reader about a Chinese painter??). But it's also enormously gratifying.