Blacksmith Books News Today

A new book published by Hong Kong’s Blacksmith Books features images of Chongqing shot by war correspondent Melville Jacoby that paint a picture of life in China’s temporary capital on the Yangtze.

Fresh from her talk at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, newly minted author Sonia Leung tells Kate Whitehead about life in a Diamond Hill slum, a devastating rape and how she finally followed her dream.

In recent years, Chinese art has become big business, with both modern and classical works raising eyebrows and fetching large sums at auction houses around the world.

From the subtropical jungles of Yunnan to the frozen wastes of Heilongjiang; across the scalding deserts of Xinjiang and beneath Hong Kong’s neon blur. Tramping through China by train, bus, boat, motorcycle, mule or hitching on the back of anything that moved. On a budget so scant that he drew sympathetic stares from peasants.

The images feature in a new book by Les Bird, 70, a former marine policeman in Hong Kong who served from 1976 until 1997. Above: Refugees are seen piled into a wooden boat.

About Whether in books, on TV, audio, or magazines and newspapers, I pretty much exclusively talk and write about China (primarily Shanghai) in the first half of the twentieth century. And this blog is the place I throw all the interesting gobbets of information, historical anecdotes, ephemera and recommended books that fall through the cracks somehow and never get used anywhere else. There’s also the occasional piece of shameless self-promotion – Paul French And do take a look at my insta...