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...
Photo: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images (2006)
Sample of authors
Westlake, Donald E.
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American author of Irish descent born in Brooklyn, New York. As a small boy, he moved with his family to Yonkers and later to Albany, New York, where he grew up. He enrolled at the State University of New York, Pittsburgh, in 1949, but dropped out the following year. He attempted to study at two more universities, but only for short periods.
Westlake had a couple of...
