A new chapter for literary fairs

The litany of international literary festivals in February and March is growing in numbers, size and the range of authors.

Performance poetry and gourmand feasts are being added to up the entertainment quotient. Quizzes, translation slams and cabarets celebrate the glory of the written word and extend its ambit.

The first Capital M Festival started on Feb 26, adding to the kitty of five thriving annual literary dos in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu and Jiangsu's Suzhou.

So, why have another show in Beijing, where the Bookworm International Literary Festival (BILF) - now in its fifth year and firmly ensconced on the world map of noted international literary festivals - is hosting 74 authors from 19 countries and more than 100 events?

"There's always room for more than one literary festival in cities the size of Beijing and Shanghai," says Tina Kanagaratnam, organizer-in-chief of the M Literary Festivals, which started nine years ago in Shanghai. "We are getting 30 of the 85 authors coming to our Shanghai festival to Beijing to take part in 15 events."

This might create a tough choice for literary festival junkies - and there are quite a few, judging by the pace at which tickets sold out to events featuring authors Bi Feiyu (Moon Opera, Three Sisters) and Peter Hessler (River Town, Country Driving).

Even as the country burns with literary festival fever and planeloads of authors arrive from such locales as Turin, Jerusalem and New South Wales, it is evident that Chinese authors are ready for international attention. And writers from around the globe are ready to engage China.

"We've tried to strike a balance between three groups, while putting together our Chinese authors' list," BILF founder Alex Pearson says.

She started the festival in her modest bookstore-cum-lending library with just 15 authors five years ago. Its profile has since grown staggeringly.

This year's BILF features the up-and-coming, including novelists Zhang Yueran and Sheng Keyi, and crime writer A Yi; the very new, such as Mian Mian and Chun Shu, who write coming-of-age novels set against urban angst; and the well-established, including heavyweight novelists Yan Lianke and Bi Feiyu, poet Xi Chuan and children's fiction-writer Yang Hongying. It will introduce e-writers, such as Hu Xudong, and sci-fi writers, including Han Song and Pan Haitian.

"The idea is to show our international audience and guests how literature is being created, in China in particular," Pearson says.

BILF's director Kadi Hughes says: "This is a chance for Chinese authors to put themselves on the radar of those who read English. We're introducing newer voices in Chinese literature, hoping they would be picked up by translators, agents and publishers."

China has become the new hot destination for authors doing the festival circuit.

"Every writer I know from somewhere else wants to come to Beijing," says Man Asian Award short-listed novelist Xu Xi, who lives in New York, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Foreign authors' engagement with China is often sustained beyond their initial curiosities. Jonathan Watts (When a Billion Chinese Jump), Peter Hessler, Leslie T. Chang (Factory Girls), and Pallavi Aiyer (Smoke and Mirrors, Chinese Whiskers), came to China as journalists. But they eventually wrote a China book or three, based on their close encounters with a complex, multidimensional and often unknowable culture.

Hong Kong Literary Festival board of directors chair Douglas Kerr says: "The whole world has become keen to learn about China, and this is reflected in the number of writers who come here from overseas."