Xi Xi (also known as Sai Sai), pseudonym of Cheung Yin, is one of Hong Kong’s most beloved and acclaimed writers, as well as a stylistic innovator across genres. She has published two poetry volumes, seven novels, twenty-one short story and essay collections, and one stand-alone novella, and many of her books have been reprinted in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China.

Her attitude toward literature, and life in general, perhaps is best epitomized through her chosen pen-name. For Xi Xi, the graphic quality of the Chinese character xi 西 looks like a girl in a skirt playing a game similar to hopscotch. Duplicating the characters side-by-side calls to mind the frame of a film, with the girl hopping from one square to another.

Not Written Words is one of the first publications in the Hong Kong Atlas series. Hong Kong Atlas is an important first step in expanding the English-language canon with a range of Hong Kong voices. By drawing on literature, translation and creative culture as a way of remapping a global city, the Atlas project offers alternative histories to Hong Kong through its own literature.

The book also won the Publishing Award in the Literature and Fiction Category at the Hong Kong Publishing Biennial Awards in 2017.

西西，原名張彦，又名張愛倫，為香港著名作家，涉獵不同的文學類型，同時勇於創造跨流派的嶄新寫作風格。著有兩本詩集、七部小說、二十一部短篇故事和散文集，以及一部獨立中篇小說。眾多著作已於台灣、香港和中國大陸重印。

「西」這個文字，帶着一種視覺趣味，像一個穿着裙子的女孩子兩隻腳站在地上一個四方格子裏：「西西」就是跳飛機的意思，這是作家小時候喜歡玩的一種遊戲。西西的筆名，同時反映作家對於文學和生活的態度。

《不是文字》收錄香港作家西西的四十五首英譯詩作，中英雙語，是 Hong Kong Atlas 香港文學英譯系列中的其一出版書籍，為首批以文學翻譯在國際文化地圖上記下香港足跡的著作。

本書獲選為2017年香港出版雙年獎文學及小說類的出版獎。