Han Han: China's Literary Bad Boy

On a recent afternoon at the Shanghai Tianma Circuit race-car track, the 1,000-strong crowd was treated to the sight of one of the competitors — still dressed in his driver's jumpsuit — walking slowly past the officials' stand, one arm held aloft with the middle finger of his hand extended. "My only regret," he later wrote on his blog, "is that I couldn't show both fingers at the same time because I happened to be having a phone conversation."

The driver was 26-year-old Han Han: best-selling novelist, champion amateur race-car driver, wildly...