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March 27, 2017

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Great reads from Shanghai’s recent lit fest

AS e-commerce and e-books developed so rapidly, brick-and-mortar bookstores have been trying various ways to balance the financial difficulties with the increasing rent and decreasing sales.

Many turned to sell drinks, handcrafts and snacks. Some tried to rent out space for events, while others chose to operate around the clock.

Book talks and cultural events are another way out, but opportunities for foreign writers, especially those less known to the Chinese readers, are still limited, not to mention a multi-week literary festival gathering quite a few writers.

This year, the Beijing-based Bookworm canceled its annual literary festival due to “financial problems” and said they “would explore other means to sustain and develop the festival.”

The Shanghai International Literary Festival at M on the Bund recently wrapped up its 15th year. The two-and-a-half week event, as usual, included loads of talks from authors covering a range of topics and genres.

For those who missed it, here’s a list of intriguing tomes highlighted at the city’s premier international literary event.

 ‘Three Cities: Seeking Hope in the Anthropocene’

Author: Rod Oram

Rod Oram, a New Zealand-based business journalist with 40 years of ex­perience, traveled to Beijing, London and Chicago to talk to scientists, businessmen and politicians to find out whether there is hope of balanc­ing ecology and economics. He chose these cities for their significance in the world economy and also because they were places where he previously lived and worked.

“With economies stagnating, politics polarizing, societies shattering and ecosystems suffering, I felt an urgent need to go walkabout,” he explains.

Oram recalls his first memory of Beijing, back in January 1979, visiting as a member of the Cana­dian trade mission. At the time, he was surprised by the low consumption of electricity per person in the Chinese capital. Beijing is also where his book begins, as he explores whether “China will be able to build cities sustainable, not only envi­ronmentally but also economically.”

The author’s discoveries and discussions with local Chinese scholars were both discouraging and hopeful. It was during this trip that Oram encountered “ecological civilization,” referring to China’s recent efforts to reconnect with traditional philosophies such as Taoism to guide the country through the struggle between the environment and development.

“It is the only place I have ever been where a so­ciety is trying to get back to traditional ideas and to establish a different relationship with nature,” he recalls.

His trip in London and Chicago, and eventually back to New Zealand, were also filled with inspira­tional talks with young scientists, entrepreneurs, economists and students, many of whom are fo­cused on where the human race should turn.

 

 ‘The Tale of Rickshaw Rooster’

Author: Sarah Brennan

The Hong Kong-based children’s book author has been delighting kids and parents at the Shanghai International Literary Festival for years with her witty and humorous calendar series featuring Chinese zodiac animals.

This year, for the first time, she sets her story in Shang­hai in “The Tale of Rickshaw Rooster,” in which the cocky rooster tries to win a multinational rickshaw race in 1920s Shanghai. She calls it her homage to Shanghai and its residents.

Intrigued by Chinese history, the former lawyer began incorporating Chinese elements into her works shortly after she started writing for children in 2004. In her calendar series, illustrated by Harry Harrison, a power­ful dragon becomes lonely and eats children, a clever rat attends the Beijing Olympics, a diligent ox gets lazy.

Brennan has only to write stories for the dog and the pig for her zodiac series to come full circle.

 

 ‘Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died Under Nazi Occupation’

Author: Anne Sebba

The historian and biographer Anne Sebba has an impressive track record of writing about strong, savvy women in history. After she finished “That Woman” a best-seller about Wallis Simpson, the American-born wife of the Duke of Windsor, Sebba decided to take a break from biography.

“I have always been fascinated by French history, and the reverberations from this period are still being felt in the country today,” she says, referring to Paris during the Nazi occupation.

As Sebba delved into research for her latest book, questions arose including: Why did some women choose to fight and others to collaborate? Why did some end up in concentration camps while others survived? What did they do? How did they do it? And why?

In “Les Parisiennes,” she includes not only French women, but also Brit­ons and Americans caught in the city. The book recounts the experiences of heroes, spies and celebrities as well as housewives and ordinary people working in restaurants, jewelry stores and nightclubs.

Through interviews with survivors and archival research, she recon­structs the thrills and threats women faced on a daily basis, as well as the motives which led them to make very different choices.

One of Sebba’s subjects is 90-year-old Noreen Roilas, the last surviving female member of the French Section of Churchill’s Special Operations Ex­ecutive, the secret agents who risked their lives on a daily basis.

In Roilas’s section, 15 of the 40 fe­male agents were tortured to death or sent to concentration camps and never returned. On average, the radio operators, most of whom were women, only lived for six weeks.




 

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