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
Handsome (Bonifacius) Kusak
Gender: Male
He is tall and broad-shouldered, and looks like a film star – which is what he dreams of becoming. But Bonifacius ‘Handsome’ Kusak – his surname is sometimes written as Kuzak, and in Swedish translations he is called ‘Snyggis’ – is a photographer with little money who travels around with his colleague ‘Bingo’ Riggs and is forever getting into difficulties which force them to be detectives in books...