The word from Shanghai
By Zhang Kun (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-05 09:49
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More than 50 authors from nearly 20 countries will gather in Shanghai and share their ideas about books and how they shape and enrich people's lives at the 8th Shanghai International Literary Festival, from Friday to March 21.
Starting with just one author in 2003, the annual festival has grown to attract such heavyweights as Junot Diaz, Dominican-American Pulitzer Prize winner for the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and David Grossman, multi-award winning Israeli author. Increasingly, the festival is bringing in less-known authors from less-familiar countries.
"Most of the participants are expatriates, and they enjoy learning about new countries and culture," says Tina Kanagaratnam, who has been organizing the festival with Tim Murray since Michelle Garnaut, owner of M Restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing, founded the festival at M on the Bund.
Garnaut, who came to China in 1998 from Melbourne and is now based in Hong Kong, understood that a literary festival would go down well in a big city like Shanghai.
"We are a festival in China so a lot of the talk is about China," says Kanagaratnam, CEO of PR consulting firm AsiaMedia.
One of the most eagerly awaited events of the two week-plus festival is a debate between two Financial Times journalists. John Authors and Mure Dickie, both with many years of working in China, will debate on whether China will be a superpower by 2020. The debate will be held in Beijing on March 13, and in Shanghai on March 14.
The festival will launch a new program, the M Literary Residency, which grants a writer a three-month residency in Shanghai, and another writer the same length of stay in Pondicherry, India. It aims to disseminate a broader knowledge of contemporary life and writing in China and India, to foster deeper intellectual, cultural and artistic links between individuals and communities, Kanagaratnam says.
The first winner of the program will be announced on Friday when the festival opens.
