https://www.scmp.com/rss/507620/feed We celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival by bringing you book reviews, features, and author profiles connected to the event. Read up before attending events, which run from November 5-15. Visit festival.org.hk for details en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Karen Cheung Karen Cheung What happens when the author of a bestselling memoir about working as a courier in mainland China, and a Hong Kong videographer who moonlights as a food delivery rider, meet? They do not immediately launch into a philosophical discussion about art and labour. Instead, they compare different vehicles’ battery lifespans, the daily distances they travel, and the risk of traffic accidents on the job. “It’s very common in [mainland] China,” Hu Anyan says. “And especially so with food delivery,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3346516/one-wrote-bestselling-book-about-being-courier-other-made-film?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3346516/one-wrote-bestselling-book-about-being-courier-other-made-film?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Mar 2026 23:15:12 +0000 Mark Footer Mark Footer The Hong Kong International Literary Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year (March 1 to 8), marking a quarter of a century of bringing some of the most famous – and in some cases, most quirky – authors to the city. Among those with more than one story to tell have been: Bonnie Tsui: most recent book: On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters (2025) It was perhaps inevitable that Tsui would publish her 2020 book Why We Swim, which explores the global history and... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3344849/hkilfs-literary-legend-visits-through-years?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3344849/hkilfs-literary-legend-visits-through-years?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 27 Feb 2026 07:16:56 +0000 Karen Cheung Karen Cheung Every year, no matter the climate, there are books of the season. There are beach reads – pulpy, unserious and intended to be finished in a few sittings, typically summer romances, crime novels or celebrity memoirs – and then there are autumn reads, books to complement falling temperatures, back-to-school blues and Halloween. The Hong Kong summer is finally winding down, and it’s time for books that unsettle and disturb, books with a touch of melancholy, and books to wash down with a warm drink... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3325264/10-autumn-reads-hong-kong-and-overseas-asian-authors?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3325264/10-autumn-reads-hong-kong-and-overseas-asian-authors?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Sep 2025 05:00:46 +0000 Karen Cheung Karen Cheung “I already knew they were at the door when the doorbell rang. It was an afternoon in plum rain season, lush mold blooming all around. May had always been punctual; I just hadn’t thought the person she’d joined her body with would be the same.” So goes the beguiling passage that opens Hong Kong writer Hon Lai-chu’s Mending Bodies, a 2010 novel that follows an unnamed narrator trying to decide whether she wishes for her body to be sewn to another – the shadowy city in which she lives encourages... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3314779/new-generation-translators-bringing-hong-kong-literature-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3314779/new-generation-translators-bringing-hong-kong-literature-world?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 19 Jun 2025 09:20:27 +0000 In what I expect isn’t an uncommon story for media types – or anyone picking up a print magazine honestly – I was an avid reader as a child. Shockingly, compulsory education didn’t beat it out of me. In fact, summer reading lists and 19th century literature courses were welcome havens from the indignity of precalculus, physics and econ. (Perhaps to my detriment, but that’s another story.) For me, it was entering the workforce. Even in a profession of words, time to just read for pleasure... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/article/3299596/week-postmag-hkilf-and-new-books-zumas-alumni?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/article/3299596/week-postmag-hkilf-and-new-books-zumas-alumni?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Feb 2025 03:00:16 +0000 Jo Lusby Jo Lusby In 2023, British children’s publisher Puffin updated the work of author Roald Dahl to exorcise perceptions of bias and prejudice. Their goal was to retrofit the work for new generations of global readers. Out went the casual name calling, fat-shaming, othering and general linguistic cruelty. Witches were no longer “old hags”, but rather, “old crows”. The terrifying Twits were still “beastly”, but no longer deemed “ugly”. The work of Dahl, long criticised for his antisemitic views, was considered... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3299394/authenticity-checks-and-balances-help-writers-stay-within-fine-lines?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3299394/authenticity-checks-and-balances-help-writers-stay-within-fine-lines?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Feb 2025 03:00:12 +0000 Gavin Yeung Gavin Yeung Just when you thought you’d get a rest after the recent holiday madness, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival returns from March 1 to 8. Venues across Hong Kong, from the Central Library to Soho House, will host a packed schedule of 68 events, including literary lunches, workshops, family-friendly sessions and spotlights on International Women’s Day (with an extended Young Readers Festival schools programme from February 24 to March 7). Having previously hosted literary giants such as... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3299569/explore-literary-wonders-hkilf-march?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3299569/explore-literary-wonders-hkilf-march?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Feb 2025 09:00:10 +0000 Kylie Knott Kylie Knott When US historian Steven Schwankert discovered that six Chinese men had survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912, after it hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage, he knew he had to write about it. He was shocked that nobody else had. Ah Lam, Chang Chip, Chung Foo, Fang Lang, Lee Bing, and Ling Hee survived the disaster that killed more than 1,500 of the estimated 2,224 on board. But their ordeal did not end with their rescue. When they reached the US they were not allowed to enter... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3298234/hong-kong-international-literary-festival-2025-highlights-including-4-star-women-authors?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts/article/3298234/hong-kong-international-literary-festival-2025-highlights-including-4-star-women-authors?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 13 Feb 2025 04:45:08 +0000 On a table in front of Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka is a variety of throat lozenges. “At dinner yesterday I was coughing a bit so the host gave me this,” says Karunatilaka, squeezing a thick brown gooey substance from a plastic sachet. “I’m not sure what it is but it seems to be working.” It’s not surprising he’s hoarse. Karunatilaka, in Hong Kong for the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, has been doing more talking than writing since he scooped the 2022 Booker Prize in October... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3213026/stuff-fantasy-booker-prize-winning-sri-lankan-author-seven-moons-maali-almeida-shehan-karunatilaka?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3213026/stuff-fantasy-booker-prize-winning-sri-lankan-author-seven-moons-maali-almeida-shehan-karunatilaka?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Mar 2023 08:15:08 +0000 Julia and the Shark, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, pub. Orion Children’s Books When Kiran Millwood Hargrave appears on November 14 at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the audience could be forgiven for wondering which writer will turn up. Will it be the bestselling author of The Mercies, her prize-winning debut 2020 novel for adults? Or Kiran Millwood Hargrave, the prize-winning poet? Or Kiran Millwood Hargrave, the playwright? Or Kiran Millwood Hargrave, the chart-topping author of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3155963/childrens-book-julia-and-shark-harrowing-moving?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3155963/childrens-book-julia-and-shark-harrowing-moving?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Nov 2021 11:26:14 +0000 AI 2041: Ten Visions for our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan pub. Currency Predicting the future has its (literary) risks. In his groundbreaking cyberpunk/artificial intelligence novel Neuromancer (1984), William Gibson wrongly foresaw such a great shortage of RAM that a mere 3MB would be motive for murder. This was several orders of magnitude wrong – but speculative fiction has also imagined sub­marines, wireless earphones and, as co-author Kai-Fu Lee points out, the Star Trek holodeck. AI... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3155120/artificial-intelligence-why-kai-fu-lee-capitalist-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3155120/artificial-intelligence-why-kai-fu-lee-capitalist-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Nov 2021 08:45:10 +0000 I was born on September 5, 1973, in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, in London. My parents were journalists – dad was on The Times and mum was the assistant literary editor of the Evening Standard – and we had a basement flat in Holland Park, in west London, which is now an incredibly desirable area but was then £7 a week. I had a nanny because journalists were well paid then and my first years were happy. My mother bought a hill farm in Wales with 83 acres and hundreds of fairly wild sheep and she... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3155033/british-author-horatio-clare-his-nervous-breakdown?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3155033/british-author-horatio-clare-his-nervous-breakdown?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Nov 2021 10:15:15 +0000 Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain by Sathnam Sanghera pub. Viking One country juggling many systems. That could have been the mantra for the British Empire – still the largest ever seen. And a corner of that institution continues to court the attention of author and journalist Sathnam Sanghera, soon to make a virtual appearance in Hong Kong to discuss his bestseller Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain. In a book sketching a personal journey through Britain’s... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3154970/brexit-britain-where-amnesia-and-nostalgia-about?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3154970/brexit-britain-where-amnesia-and-nostalgia-about?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Nov 2021 11:15:14 +0000 The Promise by Damon Galgut, pub. Chatto & Windus Damon Galgut has won the 2021 Booker Prize for the best English-language novel published in Great Britain. His remarkable and brilliant novel The Promise tracks the downfall of a white South African family over 30 years, set against South African history from the last years of apartheid. The Promise is Galgut’s ninth novel, and his third to have been shortlisted for the £50,000 (HK$533,000) prize since his first work was published when he was 17.... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3154785/damon-galguts-booker-prize-winning-promise-about-downfall?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3154785/damon-galguts-booker-prize-winning-promise-about-downfall?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 Nov 2021 03:06:29 +0000 Recovery, resilience and mental health are the key themes of this year’s Hong Kong International Literary Festival. Festival director Catherine Platt, a veteran of the city’s gruelling three-week hotel quarantine, says the “Rebound Edition” will tap into the therapeutic power of storytelling. “We wanted to reflect on the shared challenges of the pandemic, as well as the ways people survive and thrive in difficult times. And books are therapy – a comfort, resource and means of escape – so mental... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3154523/quarantine-rules-workplace-relationships-and-mental-health?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3154523/quarantine-rules-workplace-relationships-and-mental-health?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Nov 2021 09:45:15 +0000 After more than 200 days of lockdown, bibliotherapist Sonya Tsakalakis is weary of being cooped up and has been seeking out novels about faraway places in faraway times. “I just want to be a long way from home,” she says, from Melbourne, Australia. “At the moment I’m reading The Painted Kiss [2005, by Elizabeth Hickey]; it’s a reimagining of [artist Gustav] Klimt and his muse. It’s so delightful to be in sumptuous Vienna and it is so beautifully written; it really creates a sense of place and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3154202/how-book-therapy-can-help-you-emotional-problems-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3154202/how-book-therapy-can-help-you-emotional-problems-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:15:27 +0000 Ghost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung, pub. One World Pik-Shuen Fung’s Ghost Forest is a novel about loss. Constructed with admirable inventiveness and whimsy, it tells the story of an unnamed woman born in Hong Kong whose family immigrates to Vancouver, Canada, before the British territory’s 1997 return to China. Her father, however, remains behind, his “astronaut” status (contrasting with “nuclear”, in which all members of the family are together in the same country and residence) typical of families... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3154240/she-grows-vancouver-her-father-stays-hong-kong-only?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3154240/she-grows-vancouver-her-father-stays-hong-kong-only?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 31 Oct 2021 11:45:12 +0000 Seventy-four sessions. One hundred authors and speakers. Ten days of talks, readings, discussion, workshops and even guided tours. The Hong Kong International Literary Festival (HKILF) is bigger and more robust than ever, which is no mean achievement after the disruptions of the past year. Catherine Platt, the festival’s executive director, has placed the idea of revival and recovery centre stage in a programme organised around themes of wellness, community and trauma. “We wanted to celebrate... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3153864/mental-health-theme-2021-hong-kong-international?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3153864/mental-health-theme-2021-hong-kong-international?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Oct 2021 05:15:24 +0000 K-Pop Confidential and K-Pop Revolution by Stephan Lee, pub. Point Many people want to be K-pop stars; Korean-American author Stephan Lee creates them. In his fictional young adult novel series, that is. Starting with 2020’s K-Pop Confidential and continuing in next year’s K-Pop Revolution, Lee’s heroine, Candace Park, faces a variety of challenges as she pursues her path in the spotlight. Lee will discuss the series at November’s Hong Kong International Literary Festival. Despite being works of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3153434/k-pop-confidential-and-k-pop-revolution-author?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3153434/k-pop-confidential-and-k-pop-revolution-author?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 24 Oct 2021 08:15:16 +0000 A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins pub. Riverhead Books A Slow Fire Burning is the latest page-turner from Paula Hawkins, the Zimbabwean-born author of the immensely successful The Girl on the Train (2015). Towards the front of Hawkins’ third novel is a map of a part of inner London identifying the homes of seven characters. Five of them have committed various thefts: money, keys, jewellery, notebooks and life stories, and the other two – mother and estranged son – have died just weeks... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3153426/girl-train-author-paula-hawkins-new-novel-slow-fire?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3153426/girl-train-author-paula-hawkins-new-novel-slow-fire?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Oct 2021 11:15:23 +0000 The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, pub. Viking Bestselling novelist Amor Towles creates plucky and likeable heroes who rise admirably above grim and complex circumstances. True to form, his third novel, The Lincoln Highway, begins with our hero, 18-year-old Emmett Watson, facing a heavy load of misfortune. Emmett returns to his forlorn Nebraska home after serving a reformatory term for killing a man by accident. Emmett’s bankrupt father has just died after years of farming failure. His mother... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3152557/lincoln-highway-treachery-tragedy-triumphs-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3152557/lincoln-highway-treachery-tragedy-triumphs-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Oct 2021 08:15:22 +0000 When Things are Alive They Hum by Hannah Bent, pub. Ultimo Press Harper and Marlowe are sisters. Harper, who is 20, has Down syndrome, which she prefers to call Up syndrome. She lives with their British father and Chinese grandmother in Hong Kong. Marlowe is in London, doing her PhD and living with her boyfriend, Olly, who makes such helpful expository remarks as, “Your research on the symbiotic relationship between the arion larvae and the population of the sabuleti will significantly aid the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3151768/hong-kong-born-author-her-autobiographical-novel?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3151768/hong-kong-born-author-her-autobiographical-novel?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 Oct 2021 05:15:16 +0000 A Portrait of the Self as Nation: New and Selected Poems by Marilyn Chin, W.W. Norton, 2018 A Portrait of the Self as Nation brings together Marilyn Chin’s poems from her first volume, in 1987, to the present. It is both an overview and, as she notes in her preface, “best hits” – and what hits they are. Drawn from a prodigious career of poetry and advocacy, the book is a poem-by-poem, line-by-line, image-by-image masterclass in formal play, allusion and wit. Every poet creates her reader and as... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3110045/portrait-self-nation-poet-marilyn-chins-greatest-hits?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3110045/portrait-self-nation-poet-marilyn-chins-greatest-hits?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 17 Nov 2020 02:45:13 +0000 On Lighthouses by Jazmina Barrera (translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney), Two Lines Press Lighthouses are always anchored – to a shoreline, in our minds – but it’s hard to pin down this book on the subject. Jazmina Barrera organises On Lighthouses around half a dozen towers, in the United States, Spain, France and elsewhere, but the chapters are discursive, one minute illuminating their history, the next the author’s lighthouse “collection”, which includes lighthouses in literature,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3110050/lighthouses-and-last-story-mina-lee-one-takes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3110050/lighthouses-and-last-story-mina-lee-one-takes?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 Nov 2020 11:15:18 +0000 This has been quite a year for C Pam Zhang. In April she released her debut novel, How Much of These Hills is Gold. Set towards the end of the American gold rush, the story follows two young Chinese siblings, Lucy and Sam, as they navigate hostile terrain and even more hostile white Americans on a quest to bury their recently dead father. Having earned glowing reviews, Zhang was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. “[It was] a huge honour, a validation and, as all prizes are, a stroke of luck,”... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3110027/how-much-these-hills-gold-c-pam-zhangs-novel-chinese?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3110027/how-much-these-hills-gold-c-pam-zhangs-novel-chinese?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 Nov 2020 08:15:16 +0000 Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge (translated by Jeremy Tiang), Tilted Axis Press The industrial city of Yong’an is home to a number of beasts. Some of them closely resemble humans, others are ancient breeds and others have been artificially engineered. Among them, the Sorrowful Beasts, whose males weave textiles and whose females possess a great beauty; Joyous Beasts, who are short in stature and take pleasure in breakfast cereal and fantasy novels but dislike maths; and the melancholic... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3108439/strange-beasts-china-yan-ges-fabled-creatures-arent?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3108439/strange-beasts-china-yan-ges-fabled-creatures-arent?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Nov 2020 08:45:09 +0000 Menno Moto by Cameron Dueck, Biblioasis The idea of travelling to find oneself should have been abandoned at the roadside long ago. Any writer travelling this well-beaten path needs to be someone extra­ordinary and what is sought should be worth the discovery. “I was going on an epic journey to find out who I was,” announces Cameron Dueck in Menno Moto, an account of an eight-month, 45,000km motorcycle journey from Canada to Argentina, but even he was embarrassed to reveal this motive when... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3108409/menno-moto-cameron-dueck-journeys-canada-argentina?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3108409/menno-moto-cameron-dueck-journeys-canada-argentina?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Nov 2020 09:15:16 +0000 The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha (translated from Indonesian by Stephen J. Epstein), Harvill Secker. 4/5 stars Despite their reader-empower­ing name, choose-your-own-adventure books are more distinguished by the limits placed on the reader’s choice of path than any broad freedom of literary navigation. At most you will have three or four possible paths, and all are bound to lead to the end. What’s more, even though “you” will be the protagonist, typical second-person narration often sounds... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3108367/wandering-intan-paramaditha-puts-reader-charge?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3108367/wandering-intan-paramaditha-puts-reader-charge?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Nov 2020 05:45:18 +0000 All in all, it has been a very Jeffrey Wasserstrom kind of year. Hardly a week has gone by in which global headlines have not seemed like an extension of his own interests as a historian, scholar and one of the West’s leading sinologists. Wasserstrom’s profile page at the University of California, Irvine (where he is Chancellor’s Professor of History) lists those interests as “China, Protest, Globalization, Gender, Urban”. Very 2020. How have decades of research into youth protest move­ments... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3108550/future-hong-kong-uncertain-and-unpredictable?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3108550/future-hong-kong-uncertain-and-unpredictable?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Nov 2020 03:15:15 +0000 Masking the City: Hong Kong in Allegory edited by Nathan Lauer, Hong Kong Writers Circle Writers’ groups provide isolated or gregarious literary artists with the comradeship of shared successes and shared commiserations. They vary from highly organised groups with clear writing and publication goals to rough collectives of drinkers in need of company. Hong Kong Writers Circle has been bringing together English-language authors in the city since 1991, and is at the more structured and productive... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3107355/hong-kong-writers-circles-anthology-masking-city-uses?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3107355/hong-kong-writers-circles-anthology-masking-city-uses?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Nov 2020 08:15:06 +0000 Stranger in the Shogun’s City by Amy Stanley, Simon & Schuster Just as works about nothing are really about everything, so this is a book in which the life of a nobody reveals much about society. The time is the early 19th century; the location Japan’s “snow country”; the prota­gonist one of eight children of a Buddhist priest. Unlike her brothers, who studied feudal admini­stra­tion, the girl, Tsuneno, was taught to sew and, at 12, thrust into marriage. Her destiny, as historian Amy Stanley... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3107644/three-books-read-hong-kongs-literary-festival-kicks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3107644/three-books-read-hong-kongs-literary-festival-kicks?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Nov 2020 02:45:13 +0000 Tales from the Life of Bruce Wannell edited by Barnaby Rogerson and Rose Baring, Sickle Moon William Dalrymple, who is best known for writing historical books about India, was one of myriad admirers of the late Bruce Wannell, who was – to list just some of his accomplishments – a cosmopolitan polyglot explorer, Persian scholar, and gifted pianist. Wannell roamed across the Middle East and Indian subcontinent with the same passion and fascination as Ibn Battuta or Wilfred Thesiger, the tail end... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3107369/historian-william-dalrymple-leads-tributes-his?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3107369/historian-william-dalrymple-leads-tributes-his?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 01 Nov 2020 09:15:11 +0000 “There is zero spontaneity in life.” Jhumpa Lahiri is telling me about her disorienting return to work at Princeton Uni­versity, where the acclaimed writer is director and professor of creative writing. “We teach everything online, which is strange and frustrating and exhausting. We have no choice.” A weekly coronavirus test is mandatory for anyone spending more than eight hours on campus, in New Jersey, in the United States. Lahiri can’t go anywhere without being checked in and out. “They want... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3107408/author-jhumpa-lahiri-why-writing-italian-falling-love?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3107408/author-jhumpa-lahiri-why-writing-italian-falling-love?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Oct 2020 03:15:11 +0000 Nothing, it seemed, could stop the literary-festival snowball: a permanently rolling, swelling agglomeration of 400 members and counting, now with its own global association. This year, however, festivals great and small have found that they can be stopped by an invisible adversary – or obliged to adapt to Covid-19 to ensure the show goes on. Approaching its 20th incarnation, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival (HKILF) long ago established itself among the worldwide elite. Originally... https://www.scmp.com/culture/books/article/3107226/diversity-enthusiasm-dentistry-hong-kong-literary-festival-lauded-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/books/article/3107226/diversity-enthusiasm-dentistry-hong-kong-literary-festival-lauded-one?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Oct 2020 04:15:14 +0000 China’s Good War by Rana Mitter, Belknap Press. 4/5 stars Wars, hot and cold, have come and gone, but World War II remains a constant presence, hovering over our culture and politics, its myths recycled and repurposed to meet individual ends: consider Boris Johnson on Brexit, Donald Trump with Make America Great Again or Vladimir Putin and Russian exceptionalism. Having been all things to all people, The War has inspired shelves of novels, endless movies and constant references to the “greatest... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3100103/chinas-good-war-rana-mitter-explores-how-national-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3100103/chinas-good-war-rana-mitter-explores-how-national-and?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Sep 2020 21:15:16 +0000 The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai, Oneworld. 4/5 stars The Mountains Sing is the first novel by Nguyen Phan Que Mai, one of Vietnam’s leading poets, writers and translators. The story distils the past 80 years of her homeland’s fraught history into the volatile fortunes of the Tran family. This idea is embodied by our two narrators. The first is Tran Dieu Lan, whom we first find walking around bomb craters in the streets of 1970s Hanoi. Her life’s mission is to protect granddaughter... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3096128/80-years-vietnams-fraught-history-distilled-poets?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3096128/80-years-vietnams-fraught-history-distilled-poets?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Aug 2020 04:45:06 +0000 Kevin Kwan first realised how radically his life had changed during a visit home to Houston, Texas, in the United States. Walking with his mother through the car park of a suburban supermarket, and navigating swarms of traffic, Kwan got into his car and tried to back out. “There was this SUV full of guys honking, and frantically waving their arms,” recalls Kwan. “I thought, ‘Oh, no, did I hit something?’ I rolled down my window, and said, ‘What’s the matter?’ They all smiled and said, ‘Kevin,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3093385/crazy-rich-asians-kevin-kwan-says-life-has?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3093385/crazy-rich-asians-kevin-kwan-says-life-has?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jul 2020 01:15:16 +0000 Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World, by Michael Schuman. Published by PublicAffairs. 4/5 stars During a one-year sojourn in London in the 1970s, my secondary school history curriculum covered about a century from the mid-1700s on. A decade into a discussion of the Napoleonic Wars, my history teacher mentioned that after marching through a swamp, a detachment of British soldiers had burned down the White House. “That’s the War of 1812,” I interjected, finally twigging to what... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3093051/why-china-believes-it-should-be-superpower-and-history?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3093051/why-china-believes-it-should-be-superpower-and-history?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:15:09 +0000 The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China by Jonathan Kaufman Viking 3.5/5 The Sassoons and the Kadoories were two Baghdadi Jewish families that followed the coattails of the British Empire from Iraq to India to Shanghai to Hong Kong, and they provide a great lesson in making smart decisions until the day that you don’t. Jonathan Kaufman’s The Last Kings of Shanghai is at its best when it explains those smart moves, and the occasion­al not-so-smart... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3091585/last-kings-shanghai-history-sassoons-and-kadoories?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3091585/last-kings-shanghai-history-sassoons-and-kadoories?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Jul 2020 02:15:08 +0000 Strangers on the Praia: A Tale of Refugees and Resistance in Wartime Macau, by Paul French. Published by Blacksmith Books. 4/5 stars While World War II may have ended more than 70 years ago, new stories from that era continue to emerge even now. Paul French’s new book, Strangers on the Praia: A Tale of Refugees and Resistance in Wartime Macau, tells the little-known history of Jewish refugees in Shanghai who fled to the neutral Portuguese enclave of Macau. Strangers on the Praia began life as a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3090554/why-jewish-refugees-world-war-ii-fled-safety-shanghai-macau?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3090554/why-jewish-refugees-world-war-ii-fled-safety-shanghai-macau?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Jun 2020 04:00:12 +0000 By Andrea Plate If I Had Your Face, Frances Cha’s recent debut novel, tells the story of four young women struggling to succeed in cosmetically competitive Seoul, the plastic surgery capital of the world, where one in three people under 30 will most likely have had “work done”. Cha’s heroines are defined not by their intelligence, personality or achievements, but by a kind of precision beauty – surgically sculpted facial features that make or break their futures. Cha is truly cosmopolitan. Born... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3087102/beauty-and-feminism-plastic-surgery-obsessed-south-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3087102/beauty-and-feminism-plastic-surgery-obsessed-south-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Jun 2020 12:15:14 +0000 I love the prosaic title of Sichuan (China) Cuisine in Both Chinese and English (2010), which is – you guessed it – about Sichuan cuisine and written in English and simplified Chinese. The book is a joint effort by the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine and the Sichuan Gourmet Association. Chengdu’s Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine is the school that British cookbook author Fuchsia Dunlop attended as its first foreigner. She helped with the translation of this cookbook. In the introduction,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3085072/classic-sichuan-dishes-even-english-speakers-can?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3085072/classic-sichuan-dishes-even-english-speakers-can?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 21 May 2020 07:00:25 +0000 The protagonist in Chan Koonchung’s new book Zero Point Beijing is a 14-year-old student shot dead on June 4, 1989, in Tiananmen Square. After his skull is split open by a bullet, he finds himself in the netherworld. There, he goes on a search for truth in history, studying books and historical literature day and night. “[I am] in a world of no listeners … What should I say? … It won’t be passed on, let alone understood … I am just mumbling to myself. I am the only listener,” he says in the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3084553/alternative-view-beijing-history-over-eight-centuries?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3084553/alternative-view-beijing-history-over-eight-centuries?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 May 2020 10:00:16 +0000 China Bound: John Swire & Sons and Its World, 1816-1980 by Robert Bickers, 5/5 stars Swire is ubiquitous in Hong Kong and mainland China, where the conglo­merate is involved in a wide range of businesses, from property and retail mall developments to hotels, Coca-Cola bottling, Taikoo Sugar, container terminals and Cathay Pacific. Elsewhere in the world, it has business interests in several countries, from Scotland (biodiesel) to Papua New Guinea (ferry services). China Bound, a new book by... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3077036/story-swire-british-hong-hong-kong-tale-empire?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3077036/story-swire-british-hong-hong-kong-tale-empire?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Mar 2020 10:00:09 +0000 The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage by Mara Hvistendahl Riverhead Books 4/5 stars A smartly dressed Chinese man was spotted in a field in rural Iowa, in the United States, in autumn 2011. This was enough to raise suspicion in a community that was 97 per cent white and the local police went to check it out. Thus began perhaps one of the stranger cases of industrial espionage in recent years, one that highlights the threat of industrial theft and the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3049188/scientist-and-spy-chinese-industrial-espionage-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3049188/scientist-and-spy-chinese-industrial-espionage-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Feb 2020 12:00:06 +0000 It’s hard to write a definitive book on Hong Kong, particularly now with the city having experienced eight months of street protests – but academic Jeff Wasserstrom has made a good stab at it with Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink. The 112-page book, published Columbia University’s Columbia Global Reports, doesn’t follow the protests chronologically, or examine how or why various incidents happened, but instead takes a step back to look at Hong Kong in terms of one-word themes, such as “Water”,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3047125/hong-kong-protests-will-inspire-world-even-if-they-fail?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3047125/hong-kong-protests-will-inspire-world-even-if-they-fail?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Jan 2020 04:31:46 +0000 A Small Band of Men: An Englishman’s Adventures in Hong Kong’s Marine Police, by Les Bird Earnshaw Books 4/5 stars A Small Band of Men is a page-turning memoir of life in Hong Kong’s colonial-era Marine Police, during a time when policing priorities, from dealing with refugees to smuggling and illegal immigration, were very different from those of today. It also frequently fore­shadows issues that would come to dominate the city’s future. Written by Les Bird, a former superintendent who... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3045369/high-octane-tales-life-hong-kongs-marine-police?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3045369/high-octane-tales-life-hong-kongs-marine-police?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Jan 2020 00:30:09 +0000 Jewellery designer, curator, professor and cultural historian – Kai-yin Lo is a woman with many tales to tell. So it was only right that the author of five academic titles put all her stories together in her latest book, an autobiography titled Designing a Life: A Cross-Cultural Journey. Though it was an obvious move, it wasn’t an easy undertaking. “I have been thinking about my autobiography and planning it for over five years, and spent three years writing it,” she says. The Chinese cultural... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3044434/kai-yin-los-design-life-how-celebrated-hong-kong-designer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3044434/kai-yin-los-design-life-how-celebrated-hong-kong-designer?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Jan 2020 18:00:20 +0000 The business school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong has not perhaps inspired many poets. But when Mary Jean Chan describes her journey to becoming one of the world’s most promising and admired young writers, she names her decision to leave the business school as a pivotal moment. “It was desperation really,” she says. “I was in a very bad place bordering on depression. My parents saw that and knew something had to change.” Talking to 29-year-old Chan a decade later, in her adopted home... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3040692/how-hong-kong-poet-mary-jean-chan-wowing-britains?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3040692/how-hong-kong-poet-mary-jean-chan-wowing-britains?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 05 Dec 2019 10:15:12 +0000 Drunk in China: Baijiu and the World’s Oldest Drinking Culture by Derek Sandhaus University of Nebraska Press 4/5 stars B aijiu is one of the biggest challenges Chinese culture offers to foreigners, who often describe it as “gut-rot”, “engine-cleaner” or in even less positive terms. Yet the distilled grain alcohol belongs to a drinking culture that goes back thousands of years. The boom times that followed the opening of China’s economy produced some of the world’s largest liquor companies. The... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3039587/ganbei-culture-dying-out-american-goes-baijiu-bender?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3039587/ganbei-culture-dying-out-american-goes-baijiu-bender?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Nov 2019 01:09:15 +0000