M on the Bund releases International Literary Festival lineup

The Shanghai International Literary Festival, hosted by local gourmet institution M on the Bund, is back with another impressive slate of lectures, book launches, panel discussions, and workshops. Running March 15th-28th, this year’s program, announced on Friday, will bring an exceptional breadth of distinguished literary talent to Shanghai.

Opening night will see the premiere of Midnight in Peking author Paul French’s new true-crime book City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir, about the seamy underbelly of 1940s Shanghai.

National Book Critics Circle Award-winning essayist and novelist Geoff Dyer headlines the festival’s first weekend, with National Book Award-winning YA novelist M.T. Anderson and Man Booker Prize-winning novelist Richard Flanagan also scheduled to appear.

Programming for the second week runs the gamuts of geography, culture, genre, and history: from the African-American artists of early-20th-century Shanghai to the Filipino writers of the globalized present; from the imagined plane of dystopian and speculative fiction to the lived experiences of Aboriginal and refugee communities in Australia; from well-established China hands unpacking the complexities of the present geopolitical moment to Shanghai’s most lecherous writers vying for raunchy supremacy in the annual erotic fiction contest.

It is a testament to how rich this lineup promises to be that the above description probably undersells the festival’s range.

Paul Beatty, whose novel The Sellout won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2016, headlines the second weekend.

During the festival’s third and final week, Economist Cuba correspondent Roseann Lake will discuss her newly published book on China’s “leftover women,” notable for the controversy it has sparked in neglecting to cite Leta Hong Fincher’s seminal research on the topic.

Aspiring Shanghai creatives should note the trio of workshops on offer, with Australian photographer Palani Mohan (Monday, March 19th, 3pm), Turkish short story writer Ayse Kulin (Friday, March 23rd, 3pm), and multi-genre Australian writer/comedian/actor Osamah Sami (Monday, March 26th, 3pm).

Tickets will be available online at M Restaurant Group’s website starting Monday at 3pm and are priced at 85rmb for lectures and panel discussions, 180rmb for noon luncheons, and 100rmb for workshops. Entry to the erotic fiction competition is free.

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