Kate Whitehead

Wild Swans author, who appeared at the 2017 Hong Kong International Literary Festival, still has mixed feelings about China. She admitted good things have happened there, but notes ‘my books are still banned’

The power had gone out. I was lying on the floor in the pitch black, listening to waves crashing on the beach outside, wondering whether the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had heard similar sounds as he fell asleep here.

Malaysian author Tan Tweng Eng has won this year’s Man Asian Literary Prize for “The Garden of Evening Mists,” set in the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Malaysia.

Documentary maker Nancy Tong talks to Kate Whitehead about her latest film and how it is prompting a new slant to her work

Jung Chang’s biography casts a forgiving light on the life and reign of the woman who dominated China’s history during a period of upheaval

What is it? A brand new 266-room hotel on its own island (below) within the Venice lagoon. Isola delle Rose is an artificial island, built in the 19th century, and JW Marriott spent several years transforming what had been a sanatorium before the hotel opened in March.