Destination Shanghai
The launch of eighteen tales of lost, wanted, famous and forgotten sojourners to China.
Sat, Mar 23, 16:00
Paul
French
Author Biography
Paul French lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. French’s 2018 novel, City of Devils, was his much-anticipated second literary non-fiction book and was a Kirkus Book of the Year. City of Devils followed Midnight in Peking, which was a New York Times Bestseller. At the festival, he is launching a collection of his writing, Destination Shanghai, eighteen tales of old Shanghailanders, famous, infamous and previously forgotten.
Session Information
Destination Shanghai
Sat, Mar 23, 16:00
From the brief but crazy visits of American playwright Eugene O’Neil and British occultist Aleister Crowley, to recruiting spies on the Suzhou Creek while German silent movie stars flee from the Nazis to Hongkou. From the success of the Russian refugee chorus girls who became Hollywood stars and the writers who found their muse on the Bubbling Well Road, to the tragic murders and crimes of passion that characterised the darker side of Shanghai in the first half of the twentieth century. From around the world a fascinating range of people, at one time or another heard the siren call of Shanghai.
Moderated by Rob Schmitz
