Former foreign correspondent and NüVoices chair Joanna Chiu’s new book, China Unbound, details China’s rapid international rise, and the ways Western nations have contributed to a state of global disorder. The book weaves historical and political context with Chiu’s reporting across four continents. Guest host Madeleine O’Dea, award-winning author of The Phoenix Years, speaks with Chiu about how Western governments have failed to adjust to the reality that China doesn’t simply want to join the existing global order but instead re-shape it to suit themselves. The two also share advice on book-writing, and the unique characteristics of China-related storytelling from diaspora perspectives.
Recommendations:
Joanna: More Than One Child by Shen Yang, translated by Nicky Harman, The Phoenix Years: Art, Resistance, and the Making of Modern China by Madeleine O’Dea and a detailed guide to navigating a career as an author, Before and After the Book Deal.
Madeleine: Two novels that bring China’s contemporary history to life: Ma Jian’s Beijing Coma and Canadian writer Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing; Two non-fiction works: Jonathan Spence’s Gate of Heavenly Peace and Hong Kong scholar Ching Kwan Lee’s Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt, and the ABC series, “Foreign Correspondent: The Rise of China.”