Marc Chadourne’s Chine (1932)

Marc Chadourne was a French writer (and Prix Goncourt winner), adventurer and spy of sorts who visited China several times in the 1930s. He also visited Russia, Singapore, Calcutta and Tokyo to have a poke about. His earliest trip yielded the book Chine (China) which was popular enough to go into a 20,000 print run initially. “Smiling chaos and prosperous disorder” were his general impressions. In what could be an echo of writing on China today Chadbourne wrote, “The Chinese wall is alive. Each Chinese builds it within and about himself. It explains and illustrates China. It is at once her spirit and her history, her protective organism and growth, the living symbol of her offensive and defensive strategy, of her struggle inch by inch against the Occident.” Hard to find but worth a read….and here’s a long and thoughtful contemporary review by Lucille Douglas (an illustrator who knew China well) in The Saturday Review of Literature from 1932.

Incidentally, Chadourne returned to China in 1939 on a mission for French intelligence and the French Colonial Ministry to describe China, and Shanghai particularly, as infested with spies, charlatans and crooks. You could write that today too!

Marc Chadourne

The French edition

the Italian edition for contrasting cover styles

the book is illustrated throughout by the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias