Sarah Brennan Funny & Fabulous Blog

Shanghai International Literary Festival – in the Paris of the East!

Kids often ask me what the best things are about being an author – and one of the MANY fabulous things about being an author is being invited to Literary Festivals in different countries around the world! And the Shanghai International Literary Festival is one of the best there is!

HUGE thanks to Michelle Garnaut, of M on the Bund and the M Literary Festivals, for inviting me again to the SILF this year to present my latest Chinese Calendar Tale to the kids and parents of Shanghai! And what a wonderful weekend I had! We authors all stayed at the beautiful new Wanda Reign on the Bund Hotel, a superb homage to Art Deco and 1920s Shanghai, which of course is also paid homage to in my  new book The Tale of Rickshaw Rooster!! So Rickshaw Rooster and I felt quite at home! Above is a picture I took of the Bund in the evening – and you can see the green dome of the old Cathay Hotel (now called The Peace Hotel) where Miss Eugenie Stroganoff was flirting with the band in my story!

And here is, from left to right, The Bund again – you can see the Telegraph Building where Colonel Billy Flynn was posting a letter home in my story, with its big mast, at the back of the row of buildings on The Bund. In the middle is the Pudong skyline, on the other side of the Huangpu River – space-age and modern and extraordinary!! And a gorgeous light show on one of the Shanghai skyscrapers on the right! Shanghai is most definitely a city of ever-blazing lights, and is best seen at night!

And here are just some of the other authors I met: Patrick Lapeyre, a famous French writer and winner of the 2010 Prix Femina; in the middle, from left to right, Michelle Garnaut introducing Lee Tamahori (screen director of the renowned Once Were Warriors and, more recently James Bond film Die Another Day), Anne O’Brien, director of the New Zealand Writers Festival, and the wonderful Witi Ihimaera, author of famous The Whale Rider, talking about their latest collaboration Mahana; and on the right, Zhang Lijia, a famous Chinese author, talking about her latest book! I’m so fortunate to have met them and had lovely long chats with this last weekend!

  On Saturday evening, I walked down the Bund to the old Cathay Hotel, now called the Peace Hotel, to take a look! This hotel was THE place to be seen in 1920s Shanghai, at the time The Tale of Rickshaw Rooster was set, and it still has the most beautiful Art Deco carving and floors and ceilings and lights, as well as photos of the old days! Here’s one I discovered – and you can see a whole row of 1920s motor cars in the foreground! It reminded me of The Shanghai Race in my new book!