While author Murong Xuecun says he writes to entertain, some say he does much more.

"I do feel Murong Xuecun also acts out of a strong sense of moral obligation," says Harvey Thomlinson, who translated Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu, into English. The work was published by Hong Kong-based Make Do Publishing in 2010 as part of the Modern Chinese Masters series. Previously, the novel's English-language translation rights were purchased by independent publisher Allen and Unwin, and English versions were on shelves in Australia, Europe and the US. After the novel was translated into French, German, Spanish and Vietnamese, Thomlinson launched the Make-Do edition for wider circulation among English-language readers in China.

"It's a bit of a departure for a Chinese novelist to be running undercover sting operations and writing them up - somewhat along the lines of British writers like Upton Sinclair and George Orwell," Thomlinson says.

Before going undercover to infiltrate the world of pyramid schemes, Murong wrote: "I'm going to disappear for a month and risk my life. With luck, I might be able to come up with an amazing story. Even if I don't succeed, I won't regret saying goodbye to the world."

At the age 36, Murong has seen much of the world already. By 24, he had ended his "last" relationship and knew he didn't want any more "distractions" and "trivial concerns" to cloud his life.

At 28, he gave up his career as a business executive after Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu - a story about three young men living on the edge, gambling, drinking, and indulging in office politics and indiscriminate sex against the backdrop of a town flush with new money - became an online literary sensation.

He has lived in Chengdu, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Hainan, Lhasa and Guangzhou. His writings - Heaven on the Left, Shenzhen on the Right (Tiantiang Xiangzuo, Shenzhen Xiangyou); Countless People Die of Greed (Duoshuren Siyu Tanlan); and Dancing Through Red Dust (Yuanliang Wo Hongchen Diandao) - bear the imprint of those places and the myriad professions in which he worked.

Red Dust, for instance, "is a masterpiece based on experiences drawn from the early part of his career as a lawyer", Thomlinson says.

"It's about corruption in legal circles and also the spiritual disquiet within the people involved in that profession."

Thomlinson continues: "There is a lot of curiosity about New China and its urban mores among English-speaking readers. Murong is showing a different side of China to Western readers wanting to understand China."

Since Leave Me Alone made it on the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008's long list, Murong has become internationally recognized for his grim, irreverent urban tales of a radarless, mercenary, lovelorn generation in a new competitive and market-driven China.

"Interestingly, even as he writes about the dark, aberrant side of society, Murong himself has a very optimistic, positive attitude toward life, which is far from cynical," Thomlinson says.

Murong believes new masters of literature will emerge and grow popular on the Web. This, he says, is because online writing matches the pace of modern urban life, and there are ways of getting past Internet censorship.

"Some of the books which have won the Mao Dun Literary Prize tend to spend a lot of words on a family's history or things like that. It's really a waste of time," he says.

When he was in the fourth grade, his Chinese tutor asked him to keep his essays simple and spare. It's advice Murong Xuecun still swears by.

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