Between Oxford, London and Bath: How a Chinese Writer Brought the
“Heart” into Britain’s Spring

A literary feature on Xuemo’s UK visit

London in March often feels as if the day has not quite woken up. Outside Olympia London, the wind chills visitors to the bone. Inside the halls the scene is completely different. Spotlights shine. Screens flicker. Rights managers, publishers, authors and literary agents hurry between rows of stands, wheeling suitcases behind them as though chasing the unwritten future of a book.

Amid the noise stands Chinese writer Xuemo at his own booth. His voice is calm and unhurried. On the table lie several books: Eternal Love, Reclaim the Throne of Your Heart, and Way Out: The Awakening of Women’s Wisdom in the Age of AI. The titles feel slightly out of place at the London Book Fair. Here the language of the day is markets and trends. Xuemo’s work seems to come from a quieter, deeper world. In that world people need not only information but inner peace. They need a stage to showcase themselves but also access to self-knowledge.

It is this idea of the “heart” that runs quietly through his visit to Britain.

In March 2026, Xuemo began his cultural tour across the United Kingdom that would last nearly a month. It ranged from the London Book Fair between 10 and 12 March to a closing dialogue at the Oxford Literary Festival on 29 March. The programme also included a cultural salon at Ming-Ai (London) Institute on how to avoid burnout, academic exchanges at the University of Bath, the University of Bristol and SOAS, University of London, and a charity forum at the Royal Over-Seas League on life, death and human nature, followed by a dialogue with entrepreneurs on leadership and values. Seven events in total, spanning publishing, higher education, charity, culture and business.

What unfolded looked less like a promotional tour and more like an extended

question. In a world accelerated by efficiency, capital and algorithms, can literature still speak to the heart? Can a writer from China inspire global audiences with something truly authentic?

Xuemo believes he can.

At the London Book Fair his booth stood out because it was independent. Publishers and distributors from Britain, Norway and Italy stopped to discuss rights cooperation and overseas distribution. Xuemo is not new to international publishing. According to his team, he has written more than eighty books in Chinese, with over two hundred editions, and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. The English editions are by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. Works such as "Into the Desert" and "Wild Fox Ridge" have received international awards and ranked among Amazon bestsellers.

What made many listeners pause during the following events was a theme Xuemo returned to repeatedly. “Today, the human mind,” he warned, “is increasingly swayed by external forces.”

On 16 March the Ming-Ai (London) Institute invited Xuemo to deliver a public

lecture titled “From Burnout to Flow: Eastern Wisdom for Focus and Energy.” It was a topic that resonated strongly with urban residents. Yet Xuemo did not frame burnout simply as workplace stress or emotional management.

“Modern people,” he said, “feel exhausted not only because they constantly multitask but because they compare, compete, judge, and crave, driven by an excessive demand for results. The root of suffering often lies not in what they do but in what he calls the “discriminating mind.”

When speaking of “surrender,” a term that often carries negative connotations such as weakness or defeat in English, Xuemo redefined it with strength and clarity. For him, surrender was not giving up but accepting things as they are, just as nature does. He also spoke about a process-oriented mindset: embracing what life brings and doing one’s best without becoming attached to results. The sun shines on all things without asking for reward. When people stay present and trust the process, the mind relaxes.

The setting that day was modest. There was no elaborate staging. What impressed people most was Xuemo’s manner of speaking. He did not compete for attention or appear to be delivering a keynote. Instead he seemed to pass on thoughts shaped by personal experience. At the end of the event he presented the organiser with his newly published epic Suosalang. The gesture was simple yet symbolic. It mirrored the spirit of Xuemo’s entire trip. He had not come to prove something but to leave something Behind.

On 17 March, a cross-sector roundtable at the Royal Over-Seas League in London

shifted the focus from dealing with burnout to confronting life’s ultimate trials. The charity forum “Love Conquers All” was organized by the Freya Foundation (London) with support from Xuemo Foundation and other partners. Participants from literature, art and medicine spoke of love and creativity as guiding beacons, closely aligned with the core theme of Xuemo’s work.

Xuemo compared literature and wisdom to a bonfire in the darkness. A bonfire cannot stop nightfall. It cannot end war, illness or death. But it allows those who pass by to draw closer, to warm themselves and to see one another more clearly. “Individuals may not change the overall darkness,” he said, “but they can still ignite the little flame of hope against fear and nihilism.”

Drawing on Eastern philosophy, he described death as transformation rather than final termination. “What people truly fear,” he said, “is often not death itself but the lack of preparation to face it.” In a gesture reflecting that spirit, Xuemo Foundation donated £4,000 to the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.

On 19 March the discussion returned to a central question: how can a person regain inner balance and agency? At the University of Bath scholars and guests gathered for an academic seminar that also marked the English launch of Reclaim the Throne of Your Heart, translated by Dr. Yukteshwar Kumar.

With Vice-Chancellor Casey Wilson, Professor Yukteshwar Kumar, and faculty and

students present, Xuemo recounted a case from the book about a young woman with depression who found healing through its message.

“The purpose of the book,” he said, “is not ‘chicken soup’ comfort. It helps people reclaim sovereignty over their lives so their attention, emotions and destinies are no longer controlled by external judgments or social trends.”

The topic was unusual for a typical literary event. It felt like a diagnosis of the times.

Today people are more connected than ever through the digital world, yet many feel increasingly disconnected from their inner selves. Xuemo, however, did not treat this imbalance as a modern condition. Instead he placed it within a broader historical and cultural context.

“Our society often emphasizes external achievements while neglecting inner

strength,” he said. “As a result, people may appear powerful on the surface yet hollow Inside.”

Xuemo also spoke highly of Professor Kumar’s talent, calling him “a translator sent by heaven”. A book written in Chinese can only come alive in the English-language world if the translator can carry its rhythm, warmth and wisdom across that boundary.

The subject of translation was explored further the following day at the University of Bristol. On 20 March Xuemo joined Associate Professor Paul Golf and Professor

Kumar in a panel discussion on translation and cross-cultural communication attended by thousands online and in person.

When asked why translation still matters in the information age, Xuemo did not reject technology. Instead he redefined translation. “It is not merely the conversion of words or the transfer of content. It is the delicate work that occurs when one culture enters another. It requires strong language skills but also the ability to feel, empathize, judge, and sense what remains unspoken.”

“Readers,” he said, “are like the sun, and the writer a clay figure. Without sunlight, the clay remains clay; it can never become a statue.” A book is not finished when the writer completes it but when it is received by another living mind.

The conversation continued at the School of Oriental and African Studies. On 21

March, scholars from Oxford, Warwick and other universities gathered for a seminar titled “Literature and Civilization: A Cross-Continental Dialogue.”

In his speech, Xuemo reflected on why Chinese civilisation has endured for thousands of years. “Two foundations,” he said, “have sustained it: a holistic governance system and the Xin-Xing (heart-mind and its nature) traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism.” Many global crises today, he argued, stem from an imbalance between institutional systems and inner cultivation.

Xuemo said his writing is rooted in north-western China, a landscape of hardship,

resilience and faith. “Because my work grows out of that rugged land,” he argued, “it speaks to universal themes of loneliness, desire, pain and love, and to how people keep an inner light alive amid uncertainty.” He then sang the folk song Farewell at Yangguan Pass, accompanied by pipa and guzheng musicians, and donated more than a hundred copies of his books to SOAS. The gestures were simple, yet they quietly echoed the spirit of his work.

In another dialogue, Xuemo spoke on the theme “Balancing Business and

Spirituality.” He outlined a framework drawn from Chinese philosophy: Dao, De

(virtue), Fa (law), Shu (technique), and Shi (momentum). At first glance the topic

seemed far removed from literature. But the question behind it was surprisingly

aligned: how can a person, an institution, or a civilisation adapt to changing

circumstances without losing their inner core?

If the earlier events set the stage, the Oxford Literary Festival on 29 March became the tour’s defining moment.

At Magdalen College, Xuemo appeared in conversation with Polly Silk, senior

lecturer at Oxford University Press. As the festival’s only invited Chinese writer, he

explored how literature rooted in local experience can resonate across the world.

Instead of using complex terms, he compared his writing to a tree from north-western China known as the desert date. It grows in dry soil, sinks its roots deep into the earth and endures wind, drought and sandstorms.

“Living literature does not flatten itself to please the world. It has character,” Xuemo said. “It must root itself in its own land, experience and culture before it can speak to the world. Local identity is not the obstacle to universality. Shallowness is.”

In Oxford, a city long known for its pursuit of universal knowledge, the argument

sounded both simple and striking. “To know others,” he said, “a man must first know himself.”

Xuemo also spoke about the redemptive power of literature. “Humanity,” he said, “faces multiple crises. Peace cannot depend solely on rules and institutions. It must begin within the human heart. Literature matters because it works on the inner world, helping to reorder love, pain, memory and hope so that people do not lose their sense of direction in the dark.”

Can Eastern wisdom enter the modern world not as a slogan or mystique, but as

something people can relate to and live by?

This spring offered at least one possible answer. It was not loud, but it reminds us

again and again that if we humans continue to expand outward yet never settle

inward, then no matter how advanced technology is, civilisation may still lose its

Foundation.

Literature, real literature, may not transform the world overnight. But like a small fire in the dark, it can still cast enough light for the human heart to find its way.

Outside Olympia London, the early spring wind still chills passers-by. The applause in Oxford’s halls has already faded. Posters across Bath and Bristol give way to new events. Time moves forward. The Thames continues to flow. The city quietly absorbs such moments back into the rhythm of everyday life.

Yet some may still remember that one March in Britain when a writer from China’s

far west spoke not about success formulas or exporting culture. Instead, he turned to something deeper: how the soul might remain free, how people can hold on to hope amid suffering, and how literature may still deserve a word as ancient and weighty as “redemption.”

That may be the lasting echo of Xuemo’s visit to the UK.

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You can view Xuemo's NYC Big Book Award win for World Literature here, https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2025-winners/9798889910039