Bibliophiles of the city, rejoice! The multi-faceted wonders of the written word are being made manifest once more, as literati from around the world alight in Shanghai to dazzle with their wit and wisdom. From comedy rappers and junkyard dogs, to photographic legends and underwater explorers, every creed of author is appearing at M on the Bund to pay homage to the delights of reading – and here on That’s, you’ll find all of them.
Book tickets here. Click an author's name below to read an interview with them.
MARCH 5
Etgar Keret
Declared “brilliant” by Salman Rushdie, Keret is one of Israel’s most respected contemporary writers. He’s equally acclaimed for his short stories, graphic novels and scripts. During this session he will describe his journey from the worst soldier in the Israel Defense Forces to award-winning writer and filmmaker. // 6pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Opening Cocktail
Mix and mingle with the literati at the 12th Annual Shanghai International Literary Festival Opening Cocktail. // 7.30pm, RMB180. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 6
Lunch Talk: Spencer Dodington
Since moving to Shanghai in 1995, Dodington has taken his love of the city’s Concession-era architecture into a successful renovations practice. He’s spent the past three years studying Paul Veysseyre, who continues to have over 100 buildings standing in the former French Concession, co-writing with Charles LaGrange the first comprehensive coffee table-style book on the Old Shanghai architect, complete with current and historical images. // 12pm, RMB120, Glamour Bar.
Writing Workshop: SJ Rozan
New York mystery writer Rozan has captured the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award and five Shamus Awards for Best P.I. Novel, and is best known for her series featuring Chinese-American private eye Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith, based in New York’s Chinatown, which has already stretched to 11 books - 2002 title Winter and Night is one of the most feted modern mysteries. Her most recent work, Blood of the Lamb, has seen her described as some unholy profitable combination of The DaVinci Code’s Dan Brown and Twilight’s Stephanie Meyer. // 3pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Rowland Scherman
Picture this: a young boy on a family trip to the Rockies. He’s carrying his first camera – an amateur one with a sharp lens – and with it, he is determined to get a shot that encompasses the magnificence of the mountains. Those photos he shot, well, they turned out to be astounding… but only to him. // 7pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 7
Literary Lunch: Women’s Writing
This special International Women’s Day lunch examines whether writing is gender-specific and, if so, what exactly qualifies as “women’s writing.” Shamini Flint, Carrie Tiffany and Frances Osborne panel as Linda Jaivin moderates. // 12pm, RMB188. Crystal Room.
Writing workshop: Virginia Pye
Award-winning short story writer Pye’s debut novel River of Dust was chosen as an Indie Next Pick by the Independent Booksellers Association last year. The story follows American missionaries across the plains of northwestern China at the turn of the 20th century, and was partially inspired by Pye’s missionary grandfather’s diaries. // 3pm. RMB75, Crystal Room.
That’s Shanghai Erotic Fiction Competition
// Free entry, Glamour Bar.
MARCH 8
Children’s Workshop: Shamini Flint
Singaporean scribe Shamini Flint struck gold with her Inspector Singh Investigates crime-fiction series that follows a fat Sikh Singaporean murder investigator who gets the job done, but rubs his bosses the wrong way, so is sent off around Asia to investigate crimes. She’s equally respected for her children’s literature, and during this workshop will introduce memorable characters, including Marcus Atkinson, a boy who is not a sports star, despite his dad’s delusions. // 10am, RMB75 adults, RMB20 kids, Crystal Room.
Frances Osborne
The former Hon. Mrs. Osborne has shown that she’s a lot more than just the wife of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer and next door neighbor the Prime Minister. Over two biographies and one novel, she has captured accolades like the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Book of the Year, Kiriyama Prize Notable Book and New York Times Editor’s Choice. She will retell the remarkable story of her paternal great-grandmother Lilla Eckford, who wrote a cookery and housekeeping book as a way to cope in a WWII Japanese internment camp. // 11am, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Linda Jaivin
This China favorite has touched on everything from comic-erotic cult classic Eat Me to a biographic look at Hou Dejian in nonfiction The Monkey and the Dragon. She’s translated oral histories by Sang Ye and will release a pair of books this spring: novel The Empress Lover and a Beijing guidebook. During this session, Jaivin examines the nature of translation and how it forges new links. // 12pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
David Pilling
The Financial Times Asia Editor offers a fresh vision of Japan in Beyond Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival that examines the country’s ability to survive from the triple disaster of 2011 - earthquake, tsunami, meltdown -
and the post-1990s financial slowdown. // 1pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Blood on their Hands
Two of the world’s leading crime fiction writers - Shamini Flint (See above) and SJ Rozan (see Mar 6) - come together for a delightful diabolical session on how to craft a thriller. // 2pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Carrie Tiffany
Park ranger turned agricultural journalist, Tiffany was praised for originality and captured numerous awards for her 2005 debut novel Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living, which follows a romance in post-Great Depression rural Australia, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, Miles Franklin Literary Award, Guardian First Book Award and Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. Her 2012 follow-up, Mateship with Birds, was the inaugural winner of the Stella Prize, a literary prize celebrating Australian women’s writing. // 3pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Alexandra Zapruder
A member of the founding staff of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Zapruder has been a force in keeping the Holocaust’s memory alive. She penned Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust, and is overseeing an enhanced digital version complete with educational materials for teachers. She’ll also be spending a week at Concordia teaching a variety of writing workshops. // 4pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
The Financial Times Great Debate
Dave Pilling (see above) moderates a look at China’s growth and its environmental challenges. John Thornhill, Jane Owen, Tom Mitchell and Simon Rabinovitch will discuss whether this is a passing phase similar to the US, UK and Japan, or whether China’s immense size means there will be long-term ramifications. // 5pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 9
Neil Griffiths
Formerly a primary school headmaster, Griffiths is the author of many children’s stories and founder of Storysacks, cloth bags containing picture books and fun supporting materials.
// Children’s Workshop, 10am, RMB75 adults, RMB20 kids. Crystal Room.
Virginia Pye
// See Mar 7, above. 11am, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Tanveer Ahmed
This Bangladeshi-Australian has had a wonderfully strange career. A practicing psychiatrist, Ahmed transitioned into journalism as a noted expert on multiculturalism and mental health issues. In the spotlight, he indulged his comedic itch, refereeing a primetime game show. Perfect preparation for a life of politics, as he was elected as a Liberal Party councilor in 2012. Somehow, he found time to write the acclaimed migration memoir, The Exotic Rissole. He will discuss the book and how migration forces us to choose pieces of our identity. // 12pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Adam Minter
An American, Minter is the great-grandson of a Russian-Jewish immigrant junk peddler, and the son of a scrapyard owner in Minneapolis. But he insists he didn’t move to Shanghai to cover a familiar field, rather intending to freelance a few articles for trade magazines, just to get his foot in the door. But upon trudging into his first Chinese scrapyard – Shanghai Sigma, the largest one in the city – well, you could say he saw a landfill of opportunity. // 1pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Dany Laferrière
A Haitian reporter, Laferrière moved to Montreal in 1976 following political turmoil under Jean Claude Duvalier, where he continued journalism work in Canada before his 1985 debut novel, How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired - a book that explores racial stereotypes - caused major waves and was adapted into a 1990 film. He’s continued to release acclaimed work and his 2009 novel L’Enigme du Retour won the prestigious Prix Médicis. // 2pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Nick Lander
For 25 years, Nicholas Lander has been the voice of the Financial Times food section, traveling the world as its restaurant correspondent and schmoozing in some of the great eating establishments of our time. Every week, in a tone that is unequivocally British, he writes vignettes full of penetrating observation, industry scrutiny and a twinkle of wit. // 3pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Musharraf Ali Farooqi
This Pakistani-Canadian writer scored major points when his novel Between Clay and Dust was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize. The book follows a professional wrestler and a courtesan as they navigate through a changing Indian subcontinent, both practising art forms fading in popularity. // 4pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Jancis Robinson
As yin to Nick Lander’s yang for nearly three decades, his wife Jancis Robinson is one of the great authorities on wine: a powerful and outspoken voice in its consumption and critique. // 5pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 10
Steven Schwankert
When journalist and founder of Sino Scuba Schwankert found the wrecked remains of British submarine HMS Poseidon - which sank off the coast of China in 1931 - on a list of unexplored wreck dive sites, the seeds of obsession were sown. What followed was a six-year mission to uncover the political intrigue behind the submarine, which was secretly excavated by the Chinese government in the early 1970s for reasons still unknown. // 7pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 11
Writing Workshop: Rashmi Jolly Dalai
This Shanghai-based writer leads this writing workshop focusing on how to convey experience, memories and emotions into words. Students will also get useful tips on how to craft memoir and fiction. // 3pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
David R. Gray
The Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913-1916 was an audacious exploration of the Arctic Circle instrumental in the discovery of land unknown even to the Inuit in northern Canada. While it launched the careers of several explorers and provided valuable data to scientists, it was a perilous voyage; eleven men died after the main ship, the Karluk, became stuck in ice and carried off. Celebrated Canadian researcher, writer and filmmaker Gray was invited to join a group of historians and scientists for research and filming in the area to commemorate the centennial launch of the expedition. // 3pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
MARCH 12
Lunch Talk: Andrew Field
After exploring Shanghai’s dancing world of the first half of the 20th century, Field is back with an upcoming book examining Mu Shiying, one of China’s greatest modernist writers. // 12pm. RMB120, Glamour Bar.
Writing Workshop: Bert de Muynck
As an architect and co-director of Shanghai-based urban think tank, de Muynck understands the importance of an urban backdrop in literature. In this workshop, he examines when the city itself becomes a character, using the Shanghai skyline as a case study. // 3pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
MARCH 13
Poetry Workshop: Shelly Bryant
Poetry writing and feedback on poems submitted when registering. Places are limited. // 3pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
William Dalrymple
An award-winning British historian and a prominent broadcaster, Dalrymple spends most of his time living in India and has vast knowledge of the area. During this talk he’ll drop tales of the British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839, retracing Marco Polo’s footsteps in the 1990s, and plenty in between. // 7pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 14
Dominique Wilson
In her debut novel Yellow Pages, Wilson follows Chen Mu, a seven-year-old sent by China to America to study following the country’s defeat in the two Opium Wars. Rather than return, Chen flees to an Australian mining town, befriending local Edward Dawson. Years later, Dawson visits Shanghai during its 1920s heyday and falls for Ming Li, the wife of a Chinese businessman. History intervenes and the story picks up with the couple attempting to reunite, scarred by the wars. // 12pm, RMB188. Crystal Room.
Karen Ma
Born in China, raised in Japan, educated in America and now based in India, former Kyodo News reporter Ma has seen much of the world. She brings that insight in her debut novel, Excess Baggage, which chronicles two Chinese sisters, one raised in China during the Cultural Revolution, the other who lives in Japan during the height of bubble capitalism. When they reunite in Tokyo in the early 90s, the sisters must overcome cultural dislocation and family estrangement caused by decades of separation. // 12pm, RMB188. Crystal Room.
Writing Workshop: Bert de Muynck: Reading/Writing the City, a Shanghai Skyline Case Study
Oftentimes the metropolis is the backdrop for literary works. But what happens when the city becomes a character, when skyscrapers provoke poetry and prose, when they become protagonists in an urban story? // 3pm, RMB 75. Crystal Room.
Christopher Doyle
Award-winning cinematographer and Wong Kar-wai’s former partner-in-crime, Doyle will discuss the process of translating fiction to film. He won’t just talk the talk, demonstrating his methods with performance pieces based on Antonin Artaud’s letters and by Stanley Kwan’s steamy 1994 drama Red Rose, White Rose. // 7pm. RMB75, Glamour Bar.
MARCH 15
Children’s Session: Sarah Brennan
Brennan draws inspiration for her children’s tales from the Chinese Zodiac. Last year she released Sybil Snake.
// 10am, RMB75 adults, RMB20 kids. Crystal Room.
Anna Greenspan
An urbanism and digital culture professor at NYU Shanghai, Greenspan maps the city of tomorrow in Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade. While Shanghai is already a major global hub, she examines its ambitions to become a megatropolis similar to 19th- and 20th-century London and New York, mappings Shanghai’s future and how the city is reinventing the idea of the future itself. Greenspan is also a founder of the Shanghai Studies Society and leads the Accelerated City Walks for Context Travel. // 11am, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Rumana Husain
This multitalented author is a force in Karachi’s literary community, serving as Director on the Board of the Children’s Literature Festival and cofounding The Bookgroup in 1988 and Nukta Art, a bi-annual contemporary art magazine, in 2005. She’s written and illustrated over 50 children’s book, while working as a teacher-trainer, journalist and graphic designer. In Karachiwala - A Subcontinent Within a City, she explores the city’s diverse communities. // 12pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Emma Oxford
In her debut novel, At Least We Lived, Oxford recalls the remarkable romance of her parents. Sparks fly when Audrey Watson, a member of Churchill’s spy agency, is sent to Chungking in 1943 to attend a tea party given by Madame Chiang Kai-shek. She meets Max Oxford, an intelligence officer in the Royal Air Force who has escaped recently fallen Hong Kong, and the two quickly marry. Oxford supplements her parent’s collection of letters, journals and memories with her own extensive research. // 1pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Emily Perkins
Since her 1996 debut Not Her Real Name and Other Stories was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Award and claimed the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Perkins has established herself as one of New Zealand’s most important contemporary writers. Her three novels have captured numerous awards. Her latest work, The Forrests, is an epic that follows the eponymous dysfunctional family across the globe. // 2pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Deirdre Madden
Deemed the “constant genius of Irish letters” by Sebastian Barry, Madden is one of Ireland’s most decorated modern writers. She’s claimed the Hennessey Award for Short Fiction, Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, Somerset Maughan Award, Kerry Ingredients Book of the Year and on and on… Her work relies heavily on conversation and has been praised for her complex style that touches on the religious and political turmoil of Northern Ireland. // 3pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Benjamin Law
This Brisbane-based writer has contributed to over 50 Australian and international publications and his debut novel, The Family Law, was shortlisted for Book of the Year at the 2010 Australian Book Industry Awards. The darkly comic memoir - Anson Cameron of The Age wrote, “I truly didn’t need so much of Benjamin Law’s mother’s vagina,” in his review - was followed up by 2012’s travelogue, Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East. Curious about gay life in Asia, Law goes deep - sitting backstage at Thai ladyboy beauty contestants and trying an Indian yoga class designed to cure his homosexuality in a wild tome described as “gonzo-nice.” // 4pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Emma Larkin
Bangkok-based journalist Emma Larkin won awards for her 2005 memoir, Finding George Orwell in Burma, which recounts the year she spent traveling through Myanmar using Orwell’s life and work as her compass. Her 2010 follow-up, Everything is Broken: The Untold Story of Disaster Under Burma’s Military Regime, is a harrowing report on life in the months following 2008’s Cyclone Nargis, when the military government refused to provide relief and blocked international aid from entering the country. // 5pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Doc Brown
Rapper-turned-comedian-turned-kids TV sensation-turned-Law and Order star-turned… Doc Brown is a hard fellow to pin down. And that’s before we mention he is a regular collaborator of Ricky Gervais. Oh, and brother to author Zadie Smith, she of White Teeth literary superstardom.
// 7.30pm, free entry. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 16
Children’s Session: Endre Lund Eriksen & Endre Skandfer
// 10am, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Jeremy Treddinick
// 11am, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Catherine Chung
In her critically acclaimed debut novel, Forgotten Country, Chung explores two South Korean sisters as they adjust to a new life once their family moves to America. It’s a probing tale of the challenges of cultural immersion, which Chung will explore in this talk about writing in a language different from your mother tongue. // 12pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Nancy Huston
This multilingual writer has written over 35 publications including novels, essays, screenplays and children’s books, collecting numerous prizes along the way, including the Prix Contrepoint and the Canadian Governor General’s Award for Fiction in French. Her 2006 book Fault Lines won the prestigious Prix Femina and is a sprawling look at four generations of a family based on a little-known episode of WWII: under Heinrich Himmler’s Lebensborn project, over 250,000 blonde children were kidnapped from Poland and Ukraine and placed in adoptive German families in an attempt to replenish the number of Aryans. // 1pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
Ali Alizadeh
This award-winning Iranian-born Australian poet explored characters caught between East and West in his 2013 collection, Transactions. Alizadeh currently lives and teaches writing in China, while he works on his next project. He will discuss how poetry affects a writer’s other creative pursuits with Anomaa Rajakaruna (see below). // 2pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Anomaa Rajakaruna
This award-winning Sri Lankan author is equally praised for her poetry, fiction, journalism and films. She’s been honored by the Presidents of France and Sri Lanka. A potent force in her home nation, she is the Festival Director of the Agenda 14 Short Film Festival in Colombo and serves on the editorial board of women’s magazine Enya. // 2pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Pamela Williams
In last year’s Killing Fairfax: Packer, Murdoch and the Ultimate Revenge, award-winning investigative reporter Williams’ presented a thrilling behind the scenes account of the decline of the hallowed Australian media company, as it failed to adjust to the new digital age. Williams uncovers a complicated web with new start-ups funded by two traditional media tycoons, James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch, looking to expand their own online businesses. It picked up the prestigious 2013 Walkley Book Award. // 3pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
David Vann
One of the hottest writers working in the industry, Vann has won 15 awards for his internationally-bestselling books and appeared on over 70 “Best Books of the Year” lists in 12 countries. His 2008 collection of short stories, Legends of a Suicide, is a creative fiction reworking of his father’s real suicide. His 2011 novel Caribou Island was published in 16 languages and will be adapted into a film by Academy Award-winning director Bill Guttentag. This year, Vann will release the memoir, Crocodile: Memoirs from a Mexican Drug Running Port and story collection The Higher Blue. // 4pm, RMB75. Crystal Room.
Evan Osnos
After almost eight years living in Beijing, Evan Osnos, author of the New Yorker’s acclaimed regular column Letter From China, now finds himself in the curious position of writing letters to China. // 5pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 17
Lunch Talk: Writing China
Evan Osnos, Mishi Saran and Jeffrey Wasserstrom come together for an engrossing discussion on how the China story is being told from the three different approaches of journalism, fiction and history. // 12pm, RMB120. Glamour Bar.
Art Panel: Alternatives to Ritual
As the world becomes increasingly digital, this discussion on how art is exhibited is more timely than ever. Biljana Circ, Gao Mingyan, Claus Heimes and Lu Jing examine the traditional way of creating and curating exhibitions while considering a reconstruction of the relationship between artist, curator and institution. // 7pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 18
John Delury
This preeminent China scholar co-wrote Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the 21st Century with Orville Schell, which examines China’s rapid development by examining the lives of 11 influential officials, writers, activists and leaders from the first Opium War to today. // 7pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 19
Lunch Talk: Hsin Mei and Matthias Messmer
Messmer is an independent Swiss cultural critic, writer, and photographer whose work focuses on Western images of China and Chinese cultural politics and pop culture, while Chuang works as a freelance cultural researcher and writer in China. For seven years, the two traveled China’s interior documenting traditional life and its erosion in the wake of rapid modernization - the result was text-photo book China's Vanishing Worlds: Countryside, Traditions, and Cultural Spaces. // 12pm, RMB120. Glamour Bar.
Nicholas Griffin
In Ping Pong Diplomacy Griffin charts the extraordinary spread of the game throughout China, and attributes its success to the ideological inclinations of Montagu, the figure responsible for codifying its rules and founding the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). // 7pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
MARCH 20
Holly Goldberg Sloan
Family films are a delicate balance between sappy and snide, which Sloan knows all about, having written eight successful family feature films like Angels in the Outfield, and directed the Disney film The Big Green. She’s also released two young adult novels since 2011, and will dish on Hollywood life as a successful screenwriter. // 7pm. RMB75, Glamour Bar.
MARCH 21
Simon Napier Bell
Although he’s best known here as the mastermind that brought English pop-duo Wham! to China in 1985, Bell is a music legend who has managed such rock legends as the Yardbirds and T. Rex. // 7pm, RMB75. Glamour Bar.
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