Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images (2014)
Sample of authors
Qiu Xiaolong
Qiu Xiaolong is a Chinese author, poet, translator and scholar. He was born in Shanghai and grew up in post-revolution China. During the Cultural Revolution, when students were forced into the countryside to "learn from the peasants", Qiu remained in the city as he was often bedridden due to a respiratory problem. With nothing to do during long, tedious days he began to practice tai chi in the...
Photo: Guillem Lopez / Camera Press / TT (2016)
Sample of authors
May, Peter
Writer of crime novels and TV manuscripts who has received many prizes. He was born in Glasgow in Scotland, but has lived in France since 2001 and became a French citizen in 2016. Peter May started his schooling in 1956 at Carolside Primary School in Glasgow, and decided already then to become a writer. The idea was not encouraged by his teachers, and he was later thrown out of a school after a...