Posted: August 15th, 2018 | No Comments »
I just did the Australian Writers’ Centre podcast So you want to be a writer.
A group of researchers trained robots to write poetry. Discover when in the writing process you should hire an editor and how some authors got their agents. Allison shares tips for recreating characters from The Ateban Cipher series for Book Week (hot glue gun not required). We have 3 copies of ‘The Biographer’s Lover’ to giveaway. And meet Paul French, author of ‘City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai’.
You can listen via iTunes
here:
Or access the show notes and audio file
here:
Posted: August 14th, 2018 | No Comments »
81 years ago today bombs rained down on Shanghai….My Penguin China Special on that day is here on amazon.com and here on amazon.co.uk
On 14 August 1937 Shanghai’s history took a dark turn. As a typhoon approached the city’s horizons, so did bomber planes, and as citizens went about their daily routines, Shanghai experienced the worst civilian aerial attack to date. On that day, many lives were lost, and it is the eyewitness accounts of those that survived the violent attack outside the infamous Cathay Hotel close by the Bund and the Great World amusement centre in the French Concession that are reconstructed in a new Penguin short, Bloody Saturday. Paul French, an author known and awarded for a meticulous approach to narrative non-fiction, relives the day of horror that saw friendly fire tear the city apart.
Posted: August 10th, 2018 | 1 Comment »
One of Macao’s most iconic modernist buildings is under threat – the Rainha Dona Leonor Housing Block on the Praia Grande, Macao. The building was designed and built in 1958 by Jose Lei Ming-can and was the first modernist high rise in Macao with an elevator. The balconies are particularly noted as are the duplex apartments with external galleries on every second floor. Lei, the architect, was involved in many projects in Hong kong and Macau including HKUST and was a Director of the Hong Kong Architectural Services Department
There is a petition to save the building here
Posted: August 8th, 2018 | No Comments »
Art has always been a crucial component of Shanghai’s cultural history. Some of Shanghai’s esteemed modernist artists, such as Liu Haisu, painted luminous scenes of Fuxing Park and the streets of the Former French Concession (FFC). Even as the arts industry in Shanghai has been expanding from its initial enclave in M50 to the West Bund, the FFC has always been a desirable locale for galleries to showcase works of art.
Please join the Art Focus Convener and Art Historian Julie Chun who will introduce us to three new galleries specializing in contemporary art as we stroll through the tree-lined thoroughfares of the FFC. We will find that each space possesses its unique architectural charm as well as a roster of diverse artists who are inscribing the condition of the times through visual expression. Come discover the arts in your own backyard and expand your understanding of how the local intersects with the global in the artistic sphere of Shanghai.
R.S.V.P. to
Entrance fee
Members:Â 0 RMB
Non-Members:Â 50 RMB
Venue
Meeting point provided on confirmation of RSVP
Posted: August 7th, 2018 | No Comments »
If you are remotely interested in China in all its aspects – old and new, political, social or economic – you really should listen to the Sinica Podcast with Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn. Why not start with their latest episode which has me talking about City of Devils, old Shanghai, researching Republican era China and heritage/preservation issues in China….Click here to listen/download
This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Paul French, the best-selling author of Midnight in Peking. Paul has just written an outstanding new book called City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir, in which he tells a captivating story of two foreigners rising to prominence through conducting shady business in the underworld of Shanghai in the 1930s — a chaotic yet fascinating period, when the city was still known as the Paris of the Orient, leading up to the bleak realities of the war with Japan.
And…if that’s not enough…you can still listen to the Sinica episode from 2012 where we all (with the Guardian’s Tania Branigan too) all talked about Midnight in Peking – here
Posted: August 6th, 2018 | No Comments »
I owe a great debt to academics and Sinologists – my last couple of books wouldn’t have been possible without the scholarly work of a variety of people including Frederic Wakeman, Robert Bickers, Jonathan Spence, Andrew Field and a host of others…I do try to acknowledge them where possible and (unlike Hilary Mantel!) believe that admitting your debt to academia is important. Now add Paul Bevan to the list…and his new A Modern Miscellany – a fantastic new book on old Shanghai….sadly it’s not cheap so you’ll probably need to be a member of a good library, or recommend your university library to buy….
In A Modern Miscellany: Shanghai Cartoon Artists, Shao Xunmei’s Circle and the Travels of Jack Chen, 1926-1938 Paul Bevan explores how the cartoon (manhua) emerged from its place in the Chinese modern art world to become a propaganda tool in the hands of left-wing artists. The artists involved in what was largely a transcultural phenomenon were an eclectic group working in the areas of fashion and commercial art and design. The book demonstrates that during the build up to all-out war the cartoon was not only important in the sphere of Shanghai popular culture in the eyes of the publishers and readers of pictorial magazines but that it occupied a central place in the primary discourse of Chinese modern art history.
Posted: August 2nd, 2018 | 2 Comments »
A couple of links that may interest those with a fascination for old Shanghai…
I did a “Talking Location” piece with Trip Fiction on Shanghai here…
And another tour of old Shanghai (with slightly different locations and photos) with Book Trail here…
