In the avenues and alleyways

"The supporting characters, or the wedding guests, provide lots of laughs," says Huang.

"I moved to Beijing when I was 8 years old in 1950 and I grew up in the area of the Bell and Drum Towers," says Liu, 80, who was born in Chengdu, Sichuan province. Zhong Gu Lou won him the Mao Dun Literature Prize, a prestigious book award in China.

The novel was published in English with the name, The Wedding Party, in 2021 by Amazon Crossing, which was translated by Singaporean writer and editor, Jeremy Tiang.

"When I was a child, the Bell and Drum Towers were simply buildings to me. Now, they are many things. The two towers are full of memories and, most importantly, it is about the people who lived in the neighborhood for generations. They took care of and supported one another in daily life," says Liu.