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Michael Meyer on In Manchuria – London 15/2/16 – SOAS

Posted: February 12th, 2016 | No Comments »

Monday, 15 February 2016

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In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China
Michael Meyer
17:00-19:00
Room: Djam Lecture Theatre, Russell Square, SOAS, London

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Abstract

Since arriving in the country as one of its first Peace Corps volunteers 20 years ago, Michael Meyer has witnessed and written about the transformation of China, at the level of both an urban neighbourhood and a remote village.  His award-winning first book The Last Days of Old Beijing (Bloomsbury) documented changes in the daily life in the capital’s oldest neighbourhood as the city remade itself for the 2008 Olympics.  In his second book In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China (Bloomsbury) he describes a town of family rice farms being developed into a corporate agribusiness.

Amplifying the story of family and Wasteland, Meyer — via photographs — will take us on a journey across Manchuria’s past, a history that explains much about contemporary China—from the fall of the last emperor to Japanese occupation and Communist victory.  Meyer will also talk about the challenges of reporting from China and how to fund and produce books that reach a wide audience.

Biography

Author Michael Meyer received a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction and a Guggenheim Fellowship following the publication of his first book, The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed(Bloomsbury). His second book, In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China (Bloomsbury) recently won a Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book. A longtime China-based journalist, Meyer’s reporting has appeared in the New York Times, Time, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Foreign Policy, Architectural Record, Slate, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and on This American Life. He is a member of the National Committee on United States-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program, a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society (Hong Kong) and an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches nonfiction writing. He is currently based in London, researching a book about Singapore.
 
 
Further details:
www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/seminars/
 
We look forward to seeing you there.


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