I have published 10 books in China and France. My work involves many genres: fiction, film scripts and journalism.

 

My publications include a collection of film reviews, several short story collections, a Manga story titled ‘Ya San,’ published in French, and a film script The Dream Cages, which won Best Feature Drama at the New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) in 2011. My documentary film University City Savages (2009) has been screened at numerous international film festivals, and many of my short stories have appeared in various publications, such as Chutzpah, Chinese Literature Today (University of Oklahoma Press), Words Without Borders, HK Literature, The Best Selected Work of Chinese Literature of the Month, and the Guggenheim Art Museum’s Tales of Our Time. Some of my translated work can be found on Paper Republic – Chinese Literature in Translation.

 

My short story collection Journey to Absence, published by People's Literature Publishing House in July 2022, was selected as one of the top ten Chinese fiction books of 2022 by Asia Weekly in Hong Kong.

 

My series of essays, The Texture of Hard Times: An Observational Memoir of Life in the UK, was shortlisted for the Chinese Youth Writer Award (2019) and was also recognised as one of the ten best nonfiction collections of 2018 and 2022 in China by Harvest Literary Magazine. In April 2022, the complete collection was published by Dan Du in Beijing. It ranked as the No. 1 newly published nonfiction book on one of the most popular online Chinese bookshops, DangDang, in May 2022, and as No. 1 nonfiction on Douban, the Chinese version of Goodreads, in mid-July 2022, receiving a trophy for being in the top ten of the Book of the Year. It also won the 2022 Book of the Year award from One Way Street, an independent literary prize nominated by 100 bookshops across China. By October 2023, this book had been reprinted nine times.

 

I am also a freelance journalist and columnist, covering gender, social, and political issues. My columns can be found on various most well known Chinese platforms, including Dan Du, HK01, netherlandsonline.org, Southern Metropolis Daily, UK CHINESE TIMES, and Caixin Media etc.

 

I first arrived in the UK in 2010, I had only a battered suitcase and no prior education in English (I was an art graduate). However, I fell in love with the language and began self-study. The challenges of living in a linguistic exile are immense, but the newfound freedom is also really enticing. I began writing in English in 2021. As one of the ten winners, I was selected for the Escalator 2022 programme, an annual talent development scheme run by the National Centre for Writing in Norwich. I was also one of four writers of colour to receive the 2024 Curtis Brown and C&W Agencies Breakthrough Writers’ Scholarship and the recipient of the Faber Academy Scholarship for 2025.

 

I live in rural England, where I have developed an enduring love for permaculture. I am a pilgrim on a mud sheet, deeply intoxicated by nature, gardening, and English country life.

 

If you are interested in my work, reading or workshops, please feel free to get in touch: victoryargos@gmail.com.