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

When Di An and French writer Vincent Hein sit together to talk about their travels and writing, it's a magical time. They met at the fourth China-French Writers Conference in Beijing last week.

The writers come from different backgrounds, are of different genders and from different age groups, but their interaction is extremely harmonious.

A representative voice of China's younger generation, DiAn, 33, spent years in France to obtain a master's degree in sociology from the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris; Hein, 46, is based in Beijing and studies Chinese "to escape family traditions".