A former journalist, Li says that novelists should discover places and perspectives that news cannot reach. "With my eyes, I show readers the light in the ordinary people in my hometown and their very ordinary lives, and also show them the light in their own lives. This is my greatest satisfaction in writing novels," she says.

When it comes to the trade-offs between personal values and creativity, Liao says she believes that an author's personal experiences and emotions inevitably influence their work. The question of whether literature still needs to serve an educational or redemptive purpose is worth contemplating.

"The distant horizons, the countless people, all have a connection to me," Qiao says, quoting Lu Xun, who is widely considered one of the greatest authors in 20th-century Chinese literature, adding that when she writes, she too feels connected with distant readers.

"My thoughts, joys, sorrows, confusion and pain may all resonate with them. I think of each person as a well, with underground rivers connecting us all," Qiao says.

Gong has written many books that reflect her own judgments and thoughts, that have sparked widespread public debate in South Korea. She sees social progress as nurturing life and fostering growth, providing sustenance and culture to marginalized individuals, and aims to include all these in her work.

Having interacted with the underprivileged as a journalist, Li is acutely aware of the challenges faced by vulnerable groups. This inspired her to write about the struggles of a blind girl named Yinxia in Worldly Land. Li leaves it to readers to interpret her work, much like Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright and short story writer, who filled his novels with his sympathy and love of humanity without explicit mention.

"Every novelist is conveying their ideas of society, no matter how implicitly or explicitly they put it," says the Malaysian writer.