Editor's note: "Author Qiu Xiaolong is acclaimed for his Inspector Chen detective series set in Shanghai of the 1990s. But his latest work is a short story collection inspired by the "Red Dust" lane where he grew up. He chats with Joyce Wu."

Poet and novelist Qiu Xiaolong's memory of Shanghai began with Zhonghua Li, a small lane on the corner of Fujian and Jinling roads close to the old town and Yuyuan Garden.

On many a summer evening, people would sit in front of their lane houses, swapping stories or gossiping about their neighbors, while eating, drinking and laughing. Among the listeners was Qiu, who spent his formative years in the lane.

"I spent more time there than anywhere else," he told me, saying his home was only a one-minute walk from the lane where most of his friends and schoolmates lived. And after middle school, he was assigned to a neighborhood production group, where most fellow workers came from the lane.

"Near the lane entrance, I also remember, there was a blackboard newsletter that would sum up the major political and social events at the end of a year," said the writer who has lived in the United States since 1988 and writes primarily in English.

That blackboard newsletter later became an inspiration. His latest book, "Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai," is loosely based on stories of lane residents and every chapter begins with excerpts from fictional blackboard newsletters. They read like a mini history lesson that through personal stories tells of major events over several tumultuous decades, from 1945 to 2005.

Red dust is a Chinese metaphor for the material world and its striving. Qiu also calls the lane "Red Dust Lane."

The hardcover book, written in English (there's an earlier Chinese translation), will be released on September 28 at bookstores and on Amazon.com.

On a recent summer night, I visited the lane. Stepping into it was like falling into a time tunnel. In the night shadows, the narrow lane became very intimidating, with cobwebs of tiny side lanes. Laundry racks extended from almost every window. Every nook and cranny was piled with stuff, which seemed to have been stashed there forever. For fear of getting lost, I dared not explore deeper.

Near the entrance to the lane, there it is, the blackboard newsletter. But it has taken on a modern form. It is now a glassed-in billboard. On the night of my visit I spotted a Public Security Bureau notice warning about recent burglaries, several advertisements by insurance companies and a notice from the neighborhood community about a free lecture on health.

There must be several hundred families living in the lane, and several hundred of stories to tell. In Qiu's book, each story is independent, yet connected. The major character in one story becomes a minor player in another. Qiu tries to capture the mood and metamorphosis of the city through its most ordinary citizens. They are caught in the changes of the time, too dramatic and absurd for them to grasp.

In the chapter set in 1972, the year US President Richard Nixon visited China, the story is about a long afternoon for several lane kids who were supervised by adults to keep them out of trouble. Nixon's motorcade might pass "Red Dust Lane," so there was a high alert.

In a chapter set in 2003, factory worker Wei, whose life's motto is "live to eat," has luck fall into his lap as he gets a job as a salesman, mostly requiring eating and drinking. At the end, after a toxic drinking binge while entertaining a client, Wei is carried away from "Red Dust Lane," unconscious in a wailing ambulance.

These "Red Dust Lane" stories first appeared in French in serialization in Le Monde in 2008. The Chinese translation was then published by Chinese University Press of Hong Kong in traditional characters, and the book was selected by Asia Weekly as one of the "Ten Best Books of Asia" for 2009.

"Red Dust" is a departure from Qiu's award-winning detective series (in English), which started in 2000 with "Death of a Red Heroine" and now has seven installments, with the 2010 addition "Don't Cry, Tai Lake." All feature Chief Inspector Chen Chao of the Shanghai Police Bureau. The acclaimed series has been translated into more than 20 languages, including Chinese. The Guardian calls "Death of a Red Heroine" No. 1 in its "Top Ten Asian Crime Novels" and the Wall Street Journal says it's among "the five best political novels of all time."

Writing in English

Qiu started to write in English after moving to the United States in 1988, as a Ford Foundation Fellow; he later obtained a PhD in comparative literature at Washington University, St Louis. Before moving overseas, he had published prize-winning poetry and made a name by translating W.B. Yeats and T.S. Elliot into Chinese. He now lives in St Louis with his wife and daughter.

Qiu is 57, but looks as though he's in his late 40s. He is above average height of Shanghai men his age. He speaks in a boomy baritone that flows easily. He looks as though he's smiling, even when he's not. His manner is genial. He looks like he might be a teacher, a professor, the intellectual type -- and then he starts to speak.

In many ways, Qiu is similar to his creation Inspector Chen. The cop was a college English major assigned to a police career by the government, so the two share an interest in English literature. Chen is also a moderately successful poet who translates English-language mysteries to supplement his income. And snippets of famous Chinese poems as well as some of Chen's own creations are found throughout the books, so the two share a passion for poetry and translation. When they talk, both love to drop wistful verse into general conversation. When they dine, both are devoted to Shanghai cuisine.

It almost made me believe that Chen is leading the kind of life Qiu might have led had he stayed in China.

"But don't confuse me with Inspector Chen," he said in an earlier interview. "Chen is a survivor in the given social structure. I would have liked him to do more, but as a man who continues to thrive in the system, Chen knows what to do and not to do. At the same time, he is also a man informed by conflicting values and ideologies of his time, more or less symbolic of the society in a transitional period."

But Qiu missed most of Shanghai's transition in the past two decades. He become an "outsider" and has tried to make up for that by coming back, sometimes twice or three times a year, and maintaining friendships here. With Internet and satellite TV, he stays informed about China.

"For a writer, however, being an outsider it's not necessarily a disadvantage; it may also be an advantage," Qiu said. "It provides a sort of different perspective, an outsider's as well as an insider's. A distance, so to speak, from which you may observe more detachedly. It is as in Su Shi's poem, 'You may not see the true features of Mt Lu/when you lose yourself in the mountains'," he told me, in a poem-quoting manner typical of Inspector Chen.

By quoting another Chinese saying, "All the falling leaves return to their roots," I asked him whether he will move back to his hometown.

"Eventually," he said.

But he continued to ponder: "Eventually, however, will it still be the Shanghai in my memory? One does not step twice into the same river. Red Dust Lane is, fortunately, one of the not-too-many old lanes left undemolished ... Of course people are not missing the cramped living conditions, the coal briquette stoves, the food ration coupons, the lack of electric fans or air-conditioning in the pre-reform years, but at the same time, a lot of other things are missing in the increasingly materialistic city.

"Wandering among the brand stores and luxurious malls, you may find Shanghai not that different from other metropolises. What about the traditional way of living, the unique character of the city?"

Last year, returning to his hometown, Qiu traveled with a German documentary team, shooting scenes from his own perspective that evoke Chinese literature.

"As soon as we stepped into Red Dust Lane, several people recognized me. Standing by the blackboard newsletter, all the lost years came rushing back, as if I had never left," he said.