Shanghai International Literary Festival
The Shanghai International Literary Festival is an annual event held each March in China's largest city, Shanghai.
21st century's new literary event
The Shanghai International Literary Festival, started in 2003, is a sister festival to the Hong Kong International Literary Festival. Hosted at M on the Bund, the Festival has grown from small beginnings to China’s leading, and largest, English-language literary event. The Festival extends over three weekends and includes a roster of over 50 international and local authors and an audience of more than 4,000. The Festival has also become an important and significant event on China’s arts calendar, with programs that include winners of the world's leading literary prizes, including the Man Booker, National Book Award for Fiction, the Miles Franklin award and others.
The Festival was started by Michelle Garnaut, Jenny Laing Peach and Tina Kanagaratnam in 2003[1] and, each year, attracts authors from around the world and at home in China, for a celebration of the best in fiction, literary non-fiction, journalism, poetry and children’s writing. Activities include interactive forums, sessions in other languages such as Mandarin, Italian and French, as well as popular sessions with well-known writers including Man Booker Prize winners John Banville, Allan Hollinghurst, Thomas Keneally, Kiran Desai and Anne Enright. The Festival has hosted such celebrities as Simpsons creator Matt Groening, Amy Tan, Jan Morris, Shirley Hazzard and the legendary Gore Vidal, as well as sessions with well respected and established writers such as Ma Jian, Christopher Kremmer, John Man, Anna Funder, Simon Winchester and Hari Kunzru as well as participation from emerging authors such as Guo Xiaolu, Wang Xiaoli, Priya Basil, James Bradley, Kunal Basu and Mishi Saran.