LINDA Jaivin is a writer of erotic comic fiction, a playwright, an essayist on Chinese politics and culture, and translator who for decades has been writing the English subtitles for Chinese films.

The Australian most recently wrote the subtitles for Wong Kar-Wai's "The Grandmaster" (2013) about Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man; it was the first time she worked with Wong and she called the experience "challenging." She subtitled Chen Kaige's "Farewell, My Concubine" (1993), Jiang Wen's "In the Heart of the Sun" (1998), Zhang Yimo's "Hero" (2002) and other films.

She recently attended the Shanghai International Literary Festival to discuss her work in translating and subtitling Chinese films - not her own fiction, which she later discussed with Shanghai Daily.

Jaivin's own works, for which she is much better known, include the comic erotic cult classic "Eat Me" (1995) - what women really talk about when they talk about men and sex. She also wrote "Rock and Roll Babes from Outer Space" (1996) about sex-starved aliens on earth. Her latest erotic romp is "A Most Immoral Woman" (2009), a fictional account about the real affair between The Times Peking correspondent George Morrison, an Australian adventurer and sexually adventurous American heiress Mae Ruth Perkins. It's set in China and Japan in 1904.

Her works have been called witty, outrageous, hilarious, insightful, serious and satirical. They have been widely translated and some have been best-sellers in Australia, the United States and France. Neither her rollicking erotica and other writings about contemporary Chinese intellectuals and daring thinkers have been published in China. Erotic fiction - virtually anything with graphic sexuality - is typically labeled pornography.

Jaivin told Shanghai Daily in an e-mail interview that she hopes one day her own works will be published in China; she cited the long history of great erotic literature in China, such as "Jin Ping Mei" (first printed 1610), which she called one of the most beautifully written books in Chinese. Some recent scholarship calls it China's fifth great classic novel.

Jaivin wrote the libretto for a 2011 China-Australia production of a modern Peking Opera titled "Passion" with the China National Peking Opera Company. It's a fresh interpretation of Pan Jinlian, a notorious anti-heroine from the classics "Outlaws of the Marsh" in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and in "Jin Ping Mei." The stereotypical is one-dimensional, adulterous wife, who is wickedness incarnate. Jaivin's character is much more realistic and sympathetic in this tale of love, lust, betrayal, murder and revenge. "There's no contradiction between erotic literature and a harmonious society," she told Shanghai Daily.

Jaivin began to study Chinese language, history and culture at Brown University in the United States in the 1970s and never thought she would get to use it, except in Chinese restaurants. Of course, she did, and she lived for nine years in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. She studied language and culture, read widely, worked as a journalist, went to the movies and met a lot of filmmakers.

When Chen Kaige's "Yellow Earth" (1984) hit the screens, it caused a sensation, but the subtitles by the Beijing Film Academy were "more like a Google translation, which would be the source of jokes today," Jaivin said.

Gradually, directors invited her to write their English subtitles.

Today she lives in Sydney where she writes, translates, edits Western scholars who want to publish in China. She translates for her "old friend" Cui Jian, singer, songwriter and the legendary king of rock and roll. She also teaches seniors, some of them in their 80s, at the University of the New Age, how to write erotic novels. "It's all about concentration," she said.

She called working with Wong Kar-Wai "the most challenging and unprecedented experience." It wasn't easy. Other directors often hand her the screenplay directly or send her the finished film to be translated, but Wong didn't have a working script for a long time and it took him years to film. She had access to the set for two months and spent three weeks in Bangkok during postproduction.

She kept asking Wong if he had time to talk about translation problems, but he never had time. Occasionally, he looked at her work and said "no," but offered no guidance. At the last moment, he was still adding new captions, she said. Sometimes he wanted subtitles in English to depart substantively from the literal Chinese. She called writing subtitles is extremely demanding, requiring the meaning to be conveyed in 33 to 42 units per line. "You have to make it coherent," she said. Zhang Yimou told her no more than 42 for his film "To Live" (1994) - and now she thinks it is already too long.

Q: In translating, what's your view of conveying the truest meaning, staying as close to the original as possible or taking license to make the work more accessible to readers?

A: What is "staying true" to the original? If you replicate the culturally specific metaphors and imagery of the original, you may be "staying true" in one sense, but the experience of reading the translated text will be very different from that of a reader with the original. Such fidelity exoticizes the text and draws attention to cultural difference. I don't like reading translations using this strategy - they're alienating and often tiresome. It's like the translator is constantly jumping up, saying "Look at me!" As a writer I aim to recreate a parallel, equivalent text - and aim for a certain "invisibility."

Q: How do you balance readability with the beauty and refinement of the language, notably poetry and opera?

A: It's a big challenge. But English (like French, German and others) is not lacking in beauty and refinement.

Q: Some people say contemporary Chinese prose literature is not very good and doesn't measure up to international standards. Your view?

A: Some does, some doesn't. Some writers are over-hyped, and some overlooked. The Chinese literary scene is very political, and this can influence the way the writers' work may be presented in the West.

Q: Why erotic comic works?

A: Writing about sex is fun and challenging. As a feminist, I believe that women have the right to own their desires and as an observer of human nature and society, I find many sexual situations potentially hilarious. Sex is a great subject, but there's a lot of terrible writing about it.

Many contemporary societies (including China, the US and Australia) have an unhealthy fascination and tolerance for violence and an equally unhealthy aversion to sexuality. Violence hurts people. Sex unites them.

Q: What do you think of the erotic best seller "Fifty Shades of Grey?"

A: It's poorly written and socially regressive. Inner goddess? Please. Would it work if Christian Grey worked in a grocery store polishing the apples?