When Charles-Emmanuel Dewees, a 46-year-old from Marseille, France, talks about Chinese online novels like Coiling Dragon, Lord of Mysteries, and The Unruly Immortals, he uses expressions and words from those works so masterfully that a Chinese person would question whether Dewees was actually Chinese. When it comes to his favorite online novelists, it's easy to see that he is a big fan of this genre.
"I was very touched and excited when I went to Yangzhou (Jiangsu province) to interview Wo Chi Xi Hong Shi (literally, I Eat Tomatoes). The first online Chinese novel that I ever translated and shared is his Coiling Dragon," he says.
He also watched the animated adaptation of the writer's other novel, Swallowed Star. In 2023, he made a video and posted it on video-sharing platform Bilibili, explaining his perspective on its philosophy.
In Swallowed Star, the author built a vast, complex cosmic system for a story about how humans use technology and wisdom to fight alien civilizations, exploring the relationship between traditional values and scientific and technological advancements, and reminding us to stay true to human values and remain humble in the face of technological power, says Dewees in the video.
"Fanqie (a nickname fans gave the author, meaning tomato), I really wish you could see my video. Thank you so much. I genuinely appreciate the depth of your work; it has strong, positive values, much like Coiling Dragon," he says in the video.
Two years later, in the summer of 2025, Dewees met Fanqie in person for a documentary that features popular online Chinese novelists, "which is just like a dream", he says over a phone interview with China Daily.
Dewees's interest in Chinese culture was inspired by films by director Zhang Yimou that he watched at the cinema. His interest then extended to the pronunciation of the Chinese language and calligraphy.
In Paris, at the start of the 21st century, he met several students from Taiwan. Curiosity about Chinese culture drove him to communicate with them. He then fell in love with one of the female students, moved to the island in 2005, and studied Chinese language and culture while doing work like filming documentaries.
