The Man Who Loved China: An Evening with Simon Winchester
2008 KY Chynn Book Award for Chinese Studies Recipient
Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2008 Time: 6PM to 8PM
Place: 25 West 43rd Street, Room 1000
between 5th & 6th Avenues, Manhattan
In The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world’s most technologically advanced country. Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping story of China through Needham’s remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself great.
Simon Winchester, OBE, is a British author and journalist who lives in the United States and Scotland.
Winchester studied geology at St Catherine’s College, Oxford before working in Africa and on offshore oil rigs. He then spent a twenty-year career as a foreign correspondent for The Guardian, winning several awards. While at The Guardian, he was a witness to the events of Bloody Sunday. He has more recently written for such publications as Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic and book reviews for The New York Times. He lives on a small farm in Massachusetts, as well as in the Western Isles of Scotland. Before his success in book writing he was notable for being a journalist held captive by the Argentinean forces in the Falkland Islands. In the BBC television drama about the invasion, An Ungentlemanly Act, he was played by Paul Geoffrey. Winchester has traveled widely around the world.
Winchester’s most recent book is The Man Who Loved China (2008) about the British biochemist and Chinese scholar Joseph Needham.