Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images (2014)
Sample of authors
Qiu Xiaolong
Qiu Xiaolong is a Chinese author, poet, translator and scholar. He was born in Shanghai and grew up in post-revolution China. During the Cultural Revolution, when students were forced into the countryside to "learn from the peasants", Qiu remained in the city as he was often bedridden due to a respiratory problem. With nothing to do during long, tedious days he began to practice tai chi in the...
Literary figures
Sharon McCone
Gender: Female
She grew up in an area with social problems in the city of San Diego, but after some difficult teenage years she took a hold of her life, studied at university, became engaged in politics and eventually became a detective in a cooperative of lawyers. Author Marcia Muller describes Sharon McCone as dark and attractive, but also tough and stubborn – and she is regarded as the first hard-boiled f...