Archaeologis and Chinese art expert David Armour disappeared in 1941, in Peking.
He resurfaces in a mission hospital in a rural Chinese province in 1947, with no memory of the previous six years.
He can’t remember anything and nobody seems to know what happened.
There’s stories, though – some say he collaborated with the Japanese occupation forces, others claim he became a guerrilla leader fighting the Japanese.
Back in Shanghai, David will have to patch together the events of his missing years – meeting his estranged wife Adrian, feeling the pressure of a number of parties that want to use him, or take control of his life.
Then there’s the story about the four missing T’ang bronzes whose whereabouts he might know – and have forgotten.
And his other wife – the one he doesn’t remember.
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Tag Archives: China
Nice Christmas list from The Snow Pavillion
12 Christmas Gift Ideals for the Sinophile
Russian river, four letters
OK, full disclosure: I knew about the river Amur because of crosswords puzzles.
Russian river, four letters
Maybe, had I known it is also called Black Dragon River, I would have checked out the Amur river before.
Luckily, I was offered an ARC 1 of Dominic Ziegler’s Black Dragon River.
The tag-line A journey down the Amur River, at the borderland of empires sums up nicely the contents of this thick volume that Pengiun Books will be releasing later this year.
What’s so hot about the Amur? Continue reading
The Silk Road from the wrong end
The joys of the internet era.
back in the days before Youtube it took me forever to get my hands on the NHK/CCTV documentary series, The Silk Road.
Now, I find the first series, twelve episodes, on Youtube, and I’m pretty sure the second series should be somewhere at hand.
According to the legend, it took 7 years to the Japanese NHK to plan and film the series – a travel along the Silk Road starting from Chang’an and ending in the Pamirs.
The project was developed further during the following decade, finally taking a staggering 17 years to reach completion. Continue reading
Tracking Marco Polo
So it’s summer, and I’ll be spending a lot of my (little) free time reading Tim Severin.
In case you missed him, Severin is an award-winning explorer, traveler and writer who specialized in tracing the steps of famous historical and literary voyagers.
Severin is one of my all-time icons (together with the likes of Jacqes Cousteau, Folco Quilici, Thor Heyerdahl and more recently Barry Clifford), and all of his books are currently available in ebook format for very cheap price tags, so, why not.
And why not start with Tracking Marco Polo, the 1964 chronicle of Severin’s first expedition? Continue reading
10 Quick Tips About Adventure Stories
Ah, this is a fun topic – one of the five generated last week, as I was telling you.
Now “about adventure stories” is a bit vague – about reading or writing them?
And then, Adventure stories is a pretty wide field.
And who am I, anyway, to give anybody suggestions?
But ok, it’s part of the game, so here’s my ten point list of tips for adventure writers.
For what they are worth.
1 . Don’t be afraid
They will put you down, talk about escapism, implausibility, silliness, and generally try to put you in your place. Don’t be afraid to tell your story. Continue reading
Tientsin, 1934
Know what?
I’m writing.
And believe it or not, despite what I said before, I’m back in China in the 1930s.
But not in Shanghai.
Somewhere up north and east instead.
Tientsin – which today is called Tianjin – was a Treaty Town, back before the Second World War: the eight countries that had fought against the Boxers in 1901 each got a piece of the city, and maintained there a concession enjoying extraterritorial status.
And this included Italy. Continue reading
Karavansara 