It was all because of the Chinese dumplings.
November, 2007: the literary great and good were assembling in Hong Kong for the presentation of the inaugural Man Asian prize, ultimately won by Jiang Rong for Wolf Totem.
Among them were Indian author and philosopher Pankaj Mishra and Michelle Garnaut, Hong Kong and mainland restaurateur and enthusiastic sponsor of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival.
Sharing a dish of dumplings, Garnaut and Mishra were discussing literature and its global reach when they realised they had a common ambition. Their joint, altruistic initiative has now become the M Literacy Residency Programme, which from next year will host a writer in China and one in India, each for three months. Applicants are expected from around the world.
'It really started with the writing of my will,' says Garnaut. 'A friend came back from a writers' residency full of enthusiasm, and I decided I'd like to leave some money to something similar. But then I thought, 'If you have the money, why not just do it?'
'I remember talking to Pankaj over Chinese dumplings when we realised we had the same idea. He'd been thinking about it for a couple of years. He planned to set up a residency in Mashobra, the Himalayan town where he lives, a year and a half ago now, but logistically it didn't work out. If it had we would have called the whole thing M and M.