Selected journalism and book reviews…
Features and essays
When World’s Collide: On the Boom in Chinese Science Fiction May 2022 (Literary Review)
Inside China’s Fiction Factories March 29 2022 (Unherd)
How China’s Fiction Writers Have Learned To Survive Its Politics 10 Feb 2022 (TIME)
The Beijing Winter Olympics: Making Sense of China’s Master Narrative 30 Jan 2022 (Toronto Globe and Mail)
A rare conversation with the cult Chinese writer Xi Xi 3 May 2018 (Literary Hub)
Chinese migrant worker poets 15 June 2017 (Asia Pacific Journal)
Director Hou Hsiao-hsien: Taiwanese New Wave cinema 15 January 2016 (New Statesman)
Feng Xiaogang: the Chinese Spielberg 20 February 2014 (New Statesman)
Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700-1900 12 October 2013, (The Times)
Xiang Jing: the art of insecurity 4 July 2013 (The Wall Street Journal)
Iraqi writers looking for new stories 18 February 2013 (The Times)
Profile: Joan Armatrading 21 July 2012 (The Times)
Cantina: a history of circus through jazz-age cabaret 19 May 2012 (The Times)
Afghan cobbler’s son who dared to dream 5 May 2012 (The Times)
Boxing and dancing in Cuba 2 May 2012 (The Times)
Babel: landscape theatre 28 April 2012 (The Times)
The Chinese Writers Dodging Censorship 7 April 2012 (The Times)
Singer Sharon Van Etten on escaping abuse 25 February 2012 (The Times)
The art of weaving with spider silk 21 January 2012 (The Times)
Britain's garden shed inventors 11 October 2011 (The Times)
Russian literature: war and peace in space 9 April 2011 (The Times)
Video games inspiring fiction 10 November 2010 (The Times)
Lesley Pearse: bunny girl to bestseller 31 July 2010 (The Times)
Book reviews…
Celia, Misoka, I by Xue Yiwei 4 March 2022 (Los Angeles Review of Books)
The White Book by Han Kang 6 Jan 2018 (New Statesman)
The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea by Bandi 11 March 2017 (New Statesman)
Once Upon a Time in the East by Xiaolu Guo 27 January 2017 (New Statesman)
Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li 23 May 2014 (New Statesman)
Decoded by Mai Jia 15 March 2014 (The Times)
Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman 16 March 2013 (The Times)
A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers 19 January 2013 (The Times)
My favourite poetry books of 2012 8 Dec 2012 (The Times)
When It Happens to You by Molly Ringwald August 25 2012 (The Times)
It Chooses You by Miranda July 7 January 2012 (The Times)
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Won’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain 26 March 2012 (The Times)
Nemesis by Philip Roth 5 November 2011 (The Times)
The Blue Book by A. L. Kennedy 6 August 2011 (The Times)
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan 12 March 2011 (The Times)
Great House by Nicole Krauss 11 February 2011 (The Times)
Stitches by David Small 23 October 2010 (The Times)
Mud by Michele Roberts 12 June 2010 (The Times)
The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight by Gina Ochsner 3 April 2009 (The Times)