When a writer resorts to a language other than his mother tongue, he does so either out of necessity, like Conrad, or because of burning ambition, like Nabokov, or for the sake of greater estrangement, like Beckett.
-- Joseph Brodsky
About the book Dear New York, is the first novel Yilin Zhong wrote in English. A British Chinese lady is travelling to New York with her mother, where she unexpectedly encounters an American man with English heritage, who previously worked in investment banks in Hong Kong, embodying the epitome of American success. Their instant connection sparks a whirlwind romance.
However, their relationship faces challenges beyond the cultural differences of East and West. They grapple with profound disparities in their views on life, love, marriage, and everything. As their love story unfolds, Dear New York, explores how cultural nuances and ideological clashes impact one's personal relationships, shedding light on the subtle yet profound ways multicultural conflicts shape and challenge love in our complex, absurd, yet interesting postmodern era.
About the Author Yilin Zhong is a British writer born in China, an award-winning journalist, an award-winning screenwriter, and a #3 Amazon bestselling novelist. She began to write poems at age five and published her debut poem at seven. At sixteen, she published her debut novel and was interviewed by China's National TV station, which won her a national reputation as the youngest talented writer. Before she was twenty-five, she had published five books including three novels in China, known as one of the leading women writers of the post-Maoist Generation.
At twenty-five, Zhong came to study at the University of Warwick and gained her MA degree. Then she immigrated to the UK and has been living in London anonymously. Her autobiographical novel
London Love Story peaked at #3 on the Amazon Bestselling Fiction list, while
London Single Diary peaked at #50.
Chinatown peaked at #1 on the Amazon Paid Kindle Bestselling Fiction list. Both her novels
Personal Statement and
In London were highly recommended by Swedish Taiwanese writer Wenfen Chen-Malmqvist, the late sinologist G顤an Malmqvist's wife, who wrote a foreword for
In London but it was not published in China.
After taking a trip to New York, she wrote
Dear New York, (Book 1-4), her first novel written in English. By 2025, Zhong had written eighteen novels and had published ten books including eight novels, all of which became bestsellers and were sold out. Her most recent work is novel
7-Minute Love written in late 2024 and 2025. Currently she is writing a new novel
Men and World Map, after reading a 2025 news reporting many women in China have never had sex pleasure or orgasm in their entire lives.
She is single and lives in London.
Dear New York, [Prologue] 'You make me feel like I am now sleeping with someone from my novel, ' lying beside him, I said.
'This is just so funny, complete madness!' I laughed out loud at myself, but he didn't say anything. He just lay next to me, supporting his head with his left arm, looking at me.
In the darkness, I couldn't see his face, or his expression. There was only the shape of his face, figured in the shadows.
It was a handsome shape, of this American man. The one who came out of, or stepped into, my novel.
'I only met you a couple of times for a cup of coffee, nothing happened, ' two hours ago, in the coffee shop on Upper East Side, he said to me. 'What could you have written about me? It must be a fiction.'
And I was laughing out loud, madly, in the bright coffee shop, with no one else around apart from the last waitress, waiting to close the door in five minutes.
'That's very true. Indeed, it is a fiction, purely fiction, ' I giggled. 'Please remember this when you read it one da
