THE former home of a celebrated Chinese playwright and screenwriter Xia Yan on Wulumuqi Road S. will be converted into a culture and exhibition center, Xuhui District officials said.

Part of the building had served as the residence of Xia Yan (1900-95) from 1949 to 1956. The Zhejiang Province native was also a literary critic and social activist, and became Shanghai's vice minister for culture in the 1960s, but later spent eight years in prison during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

The most famous of his dozens of plays and screenplays include "Under the Eaves of Shanghai" and "The Fascist Bacillus."