The author of The Shortest History of China, Linda Jaivin is one of Australia’s most versatile writers. Her work spans history, biography, memoir, travel, humour, eroticism, social issues (her novel The Infernal Optimist is set in an immigration detention centre), China studies, literary translation and cultural commentary. Her first novel, Eat Me, was a bestseller here and translated into more than a dozen languages abroad. She has been a frequent guest on television and radio and wrote and presented a Radio National Earshot program on the subject of privacy called Nothing to Hide and a four-part series on the state of arts criticism in Australia, Situation Critical, for RN’s Arts Hub. As an Australia Reads ambassador, Linda proudly champions books and reading. She also mentors emerging writers through the Australian Society of Authors and is an editor of the China Story Yearbook, produced by the Australian National University Centre for China in the World and a film translator, subtitling Chinese films including Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine and Wong Kar Wai’s Grandmaster and Zhang Yimou’s Hero.
The Shortest History of China will also be published in the US, UK and in a number of translations including Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Greek and Bulgarian.
Linda Jaivin
Author, Literary Critic, Social Commentator
The author of The Shortest History of China, Linda Jaivin is one of Australia’s most versatile writers. Her work spans history, biography, memoir, travel, humour, eroticism, social issues (her novel The Infernal Optimist is set in an immigration detention centre), China studies, literary translation and cultural commentary. Her first novel, Eat Me, was a bestseller here and translated into more than a dozen languages abroad. She has been a frequent guest on television and radio and wrote and presented a Radio National Earshot program on the subject of privacy called Nothing to Hide and a four-part series on the state of arts criticism in Australia, Situation Critical, for RN’s Arts Hub. As an Australia Reads ambassador, Linda proudly champions books and reading. She also mentors emerging writers through the Australian Society of Authors and is an editor of the China Story Yearbook, produced by the Australian National University Centre for China in the World and a film translator, subtitling Chinese films including Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine and Wong Kar Wai’s Grandmaster and Zhang Yimou’s Hero.
The Shortest History of China will also be published in the US, UK and in a number of translations including Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Greek and Bulgarian.
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