In our continuing Web series we talk to authors writing in or about the Middle Kingdom about their literary habits, preferences and peculiarities and examine the question at the heart of being an author – why they write

Anne Warr is an Australian architect who has recently returned from Shanghai where she lived for seven years. While in Shanghai, Anne was commissioned by Watermark Press to write Shanghai Architecture, a definitive study of Shanghai architecture old and new, published in December 2007. Anne also taught Western Architecture at Tongji University and was one of the co-founders of Explore Shanghai Heritage, a volunteer group which, among other activities, produces walking tour brochures of historic Shanghai.

Singaporean Shamini Flint is the author of the popular Inspector Singh mystery series. The third book in the series, The Singapore School of Villainy, is out in April. 

Shamini will be speaking at the Shanghai International Literary Festival on Saturday, March 20 at 10am.

New Zealand author Emily Perkins put the decaying social fabric she observed in 10 years of living in London to good use in 2008’s Novel About My Wife. Told from the point of view of an irritable English widower, the book – her fourth, including the Faber Prize-winning collection Not Her Real Name and Other Stories – proved that even the earlier 'voice of a generation' acclaim with which she’d been tagged wasn’t generous enough.

Emily will be speaking at the Shanghai International Literary Festival on Sunday, March 13 at 2pm.

In our continuing Web series we talk to authors writing in or about the Middle Kingdom about their literary habits, preferences and peculiarities and examine the question at the heart of being an author – why they write

Zachary Mexico's debut book, 2009's China Underground, documents modern China by profiling 16 individuals including an investigative photojournalist, a gangster from Qingdao, an activist Beijing student and a Uighur guitarist trying to make it big in Shanghai.

In our continuing Web series we talk to authors writing in or about the Middle Kingdom about their literary habits, preferences and peculiarities and examine the question at the heart of being an author – why they write

Bamboo Hirst was born in Shanghai in the 1930s, the child of a Chinese singer and an Italian spy. Her memoir, Blue China, tells the story of her parents' romance and her own search for identity following her migration to Italy.