Readers are gaining interest in internationally acclaimed Chinese authors. (Photo : Getty Images)
The M Residency Program started in Shanghai and now has extended to Beijing. The writing program accepted submissions for 2017 and has recently closed.
Winners of the program will be announced in March.
According to the program's website, the residency aims to build a community of writers to promote the literary tradition and culture of China.
It states: "The M Literary Residency Programme has been established to disseminate a broader knowledge of contemporary life and writing in China today and to foster deeper intellectual, cultural and artistic links across individuals and communities."
In the previous years, the program accepted writers from Beijing and India for the writers to understand cultural differences among the two countries.
Author of the Man Booker Price shortlisted memoir "Do Not Say We Have Nothing" Madeleine Thien is a program recipient.
Another novelist, Tash Aw, whose novel "Five Star Billionaire" was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013, was also a recipient of the program.
Thien said: "My time in Shanghai had an intensity, immediacy and solitude almost unmatched in my entire life. This solitude and freedom were a tremendous gift to the novel and to my imaginative life. I rarely use the term life-changing, but these three months were life-changing for me."
Tash has this to say: "What I found in Shanghai was a glorious inversion of the luxuries offered by other residencies. I lived alone in the middle of a city of 20 million people, looked out at skyscrapers and listened to the noise of traffic all day. And I wrote more than I had ever written, at home or on a residency."
Meng Jin and Maxim Loskutoff were recipients of the program as well.
"I am so incredibly thankful to the M Residency for this chance to return to the city where I was born and reclaim it as a literary home," said Meng. "I can't wait to get lost in winding alleys, be astounded by how Shanghai has changed, and eat [at] Shengjian at the Shanghai Number 1 Food Store."
