| Novelist - Philosopher |
| Christopher New
Author of a number of highly praised novels set in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, Christopher New was born in England and educated at Oxford and Princeton Universities. Formerly Head of the Philosophy Department at Hong Kong University, he is also the author of The Philosophy of Literature and numerous philosophical articles. |
| Christopher New's China Coast Trilogy (the New York Times Bestseller, Shanghai, The Chinese Box, A Change of Flag) has been described as "the definitive account of the British presence here in furthest Asia and a literary feat of the highest quality", while The Kaminsky Cure, has been called "a brilliant book, a pure joy to read". His books have been widely translated into Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese and Portuguese. |
| "Among the best non-Asian writers currently writing in English about Asia" (Far Eastern Economic Review), Christopher New is equally at home in both Asia and Europe. His eastern novels range over Hong Kong, China, India and Egypt during the rise and fall of the British presence in the Middle and Far East, while his latest novel is set in Austria during the Third Reich. |
| He is currently working on two more novels set in Asia during the nineteenth century, and two set in contemporary England, as well as satirical works on euthanasia and religion, and the story of a young girl whose damaged life is dominated by her inner voices. |
| China Coast Trilogy |
| "The Trilogy deserves comparison with
the Raj Quartet of Paul Scott... a genuine masterpiece." South China Morning Post. |
Shanghai |
Shanghai:Almost the first thing callow young Englishman John Denton sees when
he steps ashore in Shanghai in 1903 is the public beheading of some pirates. Shocked and sickened though he is, he must adapt himself
to the brutal but fascinating city of extremes, and he spends the rest of his life there, through all the vicissitudes of revolution,
riot, lawlessness and war. He makes, loses, and regains a fortune, dangerously crosses a powerful triad leader, enters politics, is
imprisoned by the Japanese and survives to see the communists march in to mete out their own brand of cruel justice. An intricate
weaving of fact with fiction, Shanghai is the story of a man at the centre of one of history's most dangerous and crucial epochs.
It is also the love story of Denton and his exquisite mistress, Su-mei, who eventually becomes his wife. On the New York Times Bestseller list for eight weeks.
"An extravaganza of colorful characters, pleasing continuity and 'other world' mystery." The Washington Post Book World
Review "Shanghai is a book of epic proportions, full of plots and subplots woven around historical events. . ." San Francisco
Book Review
"Packed with history, drama and authentic detail." Sunday Telegraph |
The Chinese Box |
The Chinese Box: Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution in China.
The colony reels under bombs, assassinations and violent demonstrations. Anglo-Russian Dimitri Johnston, a disillusioned academic, fears he may be forced
to leave his birthplace, but that would only please his unhappy wife Helen, who gave up her career as a concert pianist to marry him. When Dimitri falls
in love with Mila, a Chinese ballet dancer from Shanghai, the future of his marriage begins to seem as uncertain as the future of Hong Kong. Their affair
continues as passionately as the increasing violence on the streets. But when they see a demonstrator being savagely beaten by the police, and
subsequently learn he has died in custody, they face agonising choices that will irretrievably change others' lives as well as theirs.
"Particularly sensitive is New's treatment of 'the colonial issue'.... What makes The Chinese Box a good book is the simple but all too rare
pleasure of reading beautifully crafted sentences." Asian Wall Street Journal
"...a voice that is sophisticated, phlegmatic, sceptical, astute and very frequently sardonic." South China Morning Post |
A Change of Flag |
A Change of Flag: In the 1980s China and
Britain are negotiating about Hong Kong's future, and many Hong Kong people are pondering their own: should they leave, or risk it and stay?
Among them are wealthy Michael Denton and his close friend Dimitri Johnston. Then Michael's sister, once a convinced communist, but now an embittered
victim of the Cultural Revolution, secretly contacts him to help her escape from China. To do so could be ruinous for Michael, but he feels he has no
choice. Soon the fates of rich and poor, criminal and victim, become inextricably intertwined as the past comes back in unsuspected ways to haunt
them all. "The action makes you want to keep turning the pages, but the real strength of the novel is the author's fine writing coupled with his sure touch in dealing with people, time and place... It is likely to remain the definitive Hong Kong novel." Far Eastern Economic Review |
| Other books by Christopher New |
Goodbye Chairman Mao |
Goodbye Chairman Mao: In 1971, John Coombs,
an embittered recluse with a cancer-stricken daughter, lives on an island off the coast of Hong Kong, where he is writing a
doomsday book on the future of civilisation. But he is also a top cryptoanalyst, and when the British Government asks him to
decipher a code which relates to an apparent Soviet plot to assassinate Mao Tse Tung, he reluctantly agrees. Sent to Moscow
under cover of a mathematics congress, he obtains vital information from a dissident. However, as he becomes more involved,
he himself becomes a target of the plotters, while back in Hong Kong his daughter's fragile health is beginning to fail.
"An espionage tale in which the victims... really bleed... An anti-hero... whose destruction is truly wrenching." Kirkus Reviews. |
The Road to Maridur |
The Road to Maridur: In the late 1970s, Jonathan
Kelley visits the princely Indian family where his grandmother was governess during the last days of the Raj. He soon detects
undercurrents and strains beneath his hosts' courtly generosity. Since their elder daughter married outside her caste and community,
the family has been in sad decline, and to restore its standing, Sakuntala, the romantic younger daughter, appears destined to be
sacrificed in a loveless arranged marriage to the feeble-minded son of distant wealthy relatives. The tensions between East and West,
tradition and modernity, grow steadily more taut as an unspoken relationship develops between Sakuntala and Jonathan.
"New has succeeded admirably in capturing a time and a place where worlds were colliding with huge velocity." Asian Wall Street Journal
"The strength of this book is the beautifully crafted passages describing the settings and the people he characterises. And his insight
that all of us are trapped by our personal, psychological and physical boundaries is expertly and subtly exposed." South China Morning Post
|
A Small Place in the Desert |
A Small Place in the Desert: Summer is ending when
Peter Saunders and his wife Clare arrive in Cairo to begin their guided tour of Egypt, where fifty years earlier Peter had served as
a young British officer during the Muslim Brotherhood's campaign to drive the British out. For Clare, this is a chance to help Peter
exorcise the ghosts of his past, and for her to learn something of the early love that has so scarred his life. An undercurrent is the
relation of their earnest Egyptian guide both to his radical Islamist brother and to Peter's past, while their tour is punctuated by
encounters with a naive young American couple whose innocent insensitivity leaves a trail of resentment behind them. Tensions mount as
the young American woman lies insouciantly topless on a beach, while Peter confronts his darkest memories and Clare discovers what it was
her husband has kept hidden for so long. But it is 9/11 when their tour ends, and both their guide and the naive young Americans have shocking
discoveries of their own to make.
"The novel's most painful flashback is the sinking morale... felt as fellow-soldiers get pegged off by snipers, one by one, day after day... To deliver his message with some subtlety, Mr New employs the Jamesian tool of giving various characters the traits commonly attributed to their nations... American idealism is checked by European experience... [His] message is poignant." Asian Wall Street Journal "A Small Place in the Desert is a clearly and beautifully written novel about the two tail ends of adulthood, a portrait of the artist as a young and old man." HK Magazine "While the cyclical nature of history and life are the underlying themes of Christopher New's provocative novel, it is also the moving story of the Saunders' humdrum marriage as they 'spin out the evenings of the evenings of their lives'." South China Morning Post |
The Kaminsky Cure |
The Kaminsky Cure: Lutheran Pastor
Willibald Brinkmann has a sneaking admiration for Hitler, something his Jewish wife Gabi is unable to share. But when
in 1933 the Brownshirts, affronted by Willibald's 'Jewish taint', tell him to find another twig to perch on, the family
is forced to leave their prosperous German parish and find refuge in a small Austrian alpine village, where their last child -
the narrator - is born. Then the Nazis arrive in Austria, and, since Willibald is weak and ambivalent, it falls mainly to Gabi
to try to protect her family against the ever-tightening vice of persecution and the remorseless approach of the Final Solution.
In one terrifying, yet often darkly humorous, episode after another, Gabi fights to keep her children alive in a world determined
to destroy them. Then, at last, comes the dreaded knock on the door. "The Jewish mother, 'a tempest of energy that exhausts while it saves,'... the burdened, responsible child... the Nazi official, more ambitious than vicious... the housekeeper, obstinate and loyal... Christopher New gets them to the life." Literary Review "A child's-eye view makes delusion and hypocrisy shockingly stark." Guardian "A moving, bitterly ironic story, whose sympathetic characters very successfully represent the spirit of the time." Deutschland Radio |
Philosophy of Literature: An Introduction |
Philosophy of Literature - An Introduction: discusses the philosophy of literature
from an analytic perspective which is accessible both to students of philosophy and to students of literature.
"...an intelligent, scrupulously fairminded, closely argued treatment of central topics in the philosophy of literature."
Peter Lamarque, University of Hull
"A comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of literature, which summarizes arguments concisely and clearly." Dabney Townsend, Armstrong
Atlantic State University |
| Contact Information and Links |
| Email for Mr. New: christopher.new@gmail.com |
| More information can be found at: Author Page at Amazon.com |
| Copyright © 2011 Christopher New All rights reserved. |