“The Emperor’s Bones” praised by China’s top literary critics

At a seminar and press conference held at the China Club, Beijing, today, several eminent academics, critics, writers and essayists gathered at to discuss Adam Williams’s historical novel about China, The Emperor’s Bones, published in China by Phoenix Books last week and still in the top 10 of Dang Dang Wang’s bestselling list. Williams is also believed to be the first foreign historical novelist writing about China to be published in China since Pearl Buck in the 1930s.

Among those speaking were:

• Qiu Huadong (moderating) , a poet and writer and Chief Editor of the People’s Literature Magazine
• Professor Chen Xiaoming and Professor Zhang Yiwu, professors of literature at Peking University
• Li Jianjun, professor at the Literature Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
• The polymath, Zhi An, one of the most well known critics and essayists outside academia
• Xie Xizhang, a critic and biographer who has recently written an acclaimed life of one of the top reformers in the 1920s (the period of The Emperor’s Bones)
• The novelist, Cui Manli

Attending were journalists from Beijing’s main newspapers and literary magazines. The critics’ comments were recorded and will be made the subject of articles in literary journals.

The event was attended by Joanna Burke, Cultural Minister and Director of the British Council in China.