This Weekend Paul French Unravels Beijing's Mysterious Past and the Writers Who Called It Home

As part of this year's Bookworm Literal Festival, Paul French, British author of several critically acclaimed books about China, including the New York Times-bestselling novel Midnight in Peking and City of Devils, returns to Beijing to lead a special one-off book talk as well as a writing workshop.

This Saturday, Mar 16, French, along with China historian and regular the Beijinger contributor Jeremiah Jenne will discuss other Western writers that also lived in, and wrote about China. Authors in this category include Eugene O’Neill, Langston Hughes, and Harold Acton, just to name a few. Their works and lifestyles will be used as a window into what this vast country used to be back in the days prior to other means of documentation.

As someone devoted to bringing true crime stories to life on the page, French has a knack for fleshing out real-life characters to animate historical events. Whether they're the gangsters in Republican-era Shanghai or the motley crew of actors involved in the death of young Beijing expat, French brings time, place, and people alive.

It is only fitting then that as part of his writing workshop, French will touch upon the devices he uses to research China's murky past and family histories as well as how he pinpoints trustworthy sources to build the narratives in his books.

If you'd prefer something a little more active, French will also put aside time in the capital to personally man three 'Midnight in Peking' walking tours organized by the Bespoke Travel Company. Based off of his novel by the same name, the tour follows and reenacts the dark events in 1937 surrounding the grisly murder of 19-year-old Pamela Werner, the daughter of a retired British consul. Click here for more information on those.

Below, we speak to French about how his days living in China have inspired his writings, and what we can expect at his two not-to-be-missed events this weekend.

What brings you and Jeremiah Jenne together for your upcoming Bookworm talk? 
I’ve just published a collection of my writing on Shanghai’s history – 18 stories about different people; some famous, some anonymous, who visited old Shanghai. It’s called Destination Shanghai. I’ve known Jeremiah for a while and have always been an admirer of his work, which largely focuses on Beijing and northern China. So I thought he’d be a good sparring partner to talk with at the Lit Fest and compare and contrast the foreign experience of visiting Shanghai and Beijing in the 20th century.

Your talk will center around foreigners from all walks of life who, at one point or another, called Beijing home. What, if any inspiration have you drawn from them?
Well, I like the writers and aesthetes for obvious reasons – Eugene O’Neill, Langston Hughes, Andre Malraux, and Arthur Ransome for instance in Shanghai and Harold Acton, Robert Byron, Denton Welch, and others who wrote about Beijing. Given what I usually write about, I have a soft spot for gangsters – Shanghai is a much more gangster town than Beijing. I’ve squeezed in Elly Widler, who was a Swiss thief in Shanghai, and the Canadian conman CC Julian who fled America to Shanghai.

Among all of your China-centric books, Midnight in Peking seems to remain the most popular – why do you think that is? Are there any of your books that you wish to bring wider recognition to in- and outside of China?
That’s certainly true in Beijing and my Shanghai book City of Devils has a really big following and got good reviews too. Shanghai folk love that book; Beijing folk like Midnight. I hope that if you come to China and happen, through work or circumstance, to end up in Beijing, then Midnight will hopefully give you a good introduction to the city’s history and darker side; likewise City of Devils for those who wind up in Shanghai (as I did many years ago) and walk those once totally crazy streets. Of course, everyone in Shanghai should visit Beijing more than they do and everyone in Beijing should hop on a train down to Shanghai more often.

Will your writing workshop be closely linked to the way in which you wrote and researched your books?
Absolutely – I think that true crime and native non-fiction are really big genres at the moment but they can be done very well or very badly. I’ve had a couple of goes now myself and had some success, so I’ve made some mistakes and gone on a few learning curves in terms of research, plotting, writing style, and pitching that hopefully, if you attend the workshop, you can avoid. So many people have a good true story – some nugget of history, a fascinating family member – and this might be the way to kickstart that book you’ve thought about for a long time but just not had that push…

Several of your books shed light on foreign enclaves in China. Why do you personally find these histories interesting and who would you say is the main audience for these topics?
My area of interest is the foreign community in China in the first half of the 20th century. I doubt I’ll ever write about anything else. Living in China for a couple of decades led me to this interest, wondering about who came before me. Obviously, there’s a lot of interest among foreigners living in China but I sell globally. I think, having traveled to bookshops and literary festivals, China is a big thing for people, but they’re not so interested in another contemporary China book or a thick history primer. My work – Midnight and Devils – give you some history, some background, another way of looking at somewhere that interests you, and a good story. Of course, I also have a good following in the crime, true crime, and historical fiction genres. But I also have a decent size Chinese audience – the world of the Legation Quarter and the old Peking Badlands interests them a lot – they don’t know it; it’s not really taught at school or written about by Chinese writers. Similarly, Shanghainese readers are as interested in the glamor and grime of 1930s Shanghai as the rest of us. 

From your experience, do you think your books help people who perhaps have never visited China better understand the country and its people?
I hope so, and I get told that a lot. I know that part of the reason Midnight in Peking still sells so well is that there’s a walking tour, documentaries, and so on and because people here recommend it to visiting friends and relatives as a good read on the plane over! Fine with me obviously. There’s a lot Chinese history – the first half of the 20th century is just one tiny bit; the foreigners who lived here then an even smaller bit – but it’s endlessly fascinating and one piece of the overall massive jigsaw of Chinese history. I don’t claim to offer guides to understanding China and its people but, I hope people enjoy the books and are encouraged to go buy more books on China, learn more, talk about China more, visit, enjoy their time here more.

Are you currently working on any new books? If so, do they have any relation to your former works?
A continuation really. Midnight in Peking was about the last days of old China, before the Japanese invasion in 1937. City of Devils really starts then and goes up to December 1941. My next book will start with the end of the war, in 1946, and be set in those last few crazy tumultuous years before 1949. All those foreigners – the stateless Russians, the Jewish refugees – needed to leave and it was a mad scramble to get passports, on ships, and to new lives. Of course, there’s a true crime in the book, quite a few gangsters, and a lot of Shanghai again.

Tickets to Paul French's book talk on Mar 16, 4pm cost RMB 60 and can be bought here. Tickets for his book workshop on ar 17, 2pm can be bought here.

Want to take the Midnight in Peking walking tour on your time? There's a completely free audio guide, right here.

More stories by this author here.
Email: kuang@thebeijinger.com
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Photo: Sue Anne Tay, PBS