When a literary encounter with the French produces a little magic in Beijing

Chinese author Liu Zhenyun attends the Chinese-French writers event in Beijing.

Di An is a successful and influential writer with novels like Ashes to Ashes, the Memory in the City of Dragon series and a literary magazine she runs. She also translates French art books into Chinese.

Commenting on Di An's popularity, established writer Li Er says that whenever Di An launches a new novel, it creates a sensation on the country's literary scene.

Speaking of how shenavigates the French and Chinese literary worlds, Di An says: "Traveling between languages is difficult, but interesting."

She adds that one of her hobbies is to browse through online forums looking for people who learn very minor foreign languages.

Li believes that young Chinese like to travel because they find it romantic, just like the French do.

Hein, too, finds the idea of traveling romantic.

When asked what he wanted to become when he grew up- a doctor, a lawyer or join the army -three professions popular in his family, Hein was thinking of traveling and literature.

"I read, especially books on travel, as an escape ... I see a new world through different windows, and I wish I could be at the far end of the world," says Hein.

When at 15, he told his father that he would like to be a writer, his father was upset.

"Are you thinking of the US and UK?" his father asked, least expecting China to be one of young Hein's targets.

"The first time I was here (in China) after high school, I knew it was right, though the country had just opened up. I just love it here," he says.

Hein then learned Chinese and worked for a publisher in France before taking up a job as a business representative at the French embassy in Beijing.