Peter Hessler – författare

A New York Times–bestselling intimate and epic portrait of twenty-first century China from the acclaimed author of River Town—A National Book Award Finalist and a Best Book of the Year: Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Oracle Bones will firmly establish Mr. Hessler as one of the Western world’s most thoughtful writers on modern China. . . . A page-turner with great insight into Chinese society. . . . A richly humanistic portrayal.” —Wall Street Journal

A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. In Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler explores the human side of China’s transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.

“Hessler has stepped off the treadmill of events-driven journalism to produce one of the most profoundly original books about China since, well, since his first book, River Town. . . . Everywhere, the book is shot through with sensitivity, insight, and rollicking good humor too.” —The Economist

“Serenely confident. Hessler has a marvelous sense of the intonations and gestures that give life to the moment. . . . Today’s China could have been made for him. . . . You will be hooked.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Hessler has a marvelous sense of the intonations and gestures that give life to the moment.” —The New York Times Book Review

From Peter Hessler, the New York Times bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town, comes Country Driving, the third and final book in his award-winning China trilogy. Country Driving addresses the human side of the economic revolution in China, focusing on economics and development, and shows how the auto boom helps China shift from rural to urban, from farming to business.

The New Yorker writer''s collection of true stories highlights his perspective of Asia and the United States as both native and knowledgeable outsider.

Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage—a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work—in two very different regions of the world.

“Wild Flavor” invites readers along on a taste test between two rat restaurants in South China. One story profiles Yao Ming, basketball star and China’s most beloved export, another David Spindler, an obsessive and passionate historian of the Great Wall. In “Dr. Don,” Hessler writes movingly about a small-town pharmacist and his relationship with the people he serves.

While Hessler’s subjects and locations vary, subtle but deeply important thematic links bind these pieces—the strength of local traditions, the surprising overlap between apparently opposing cultures, and the powerful lessons drawn from individuals who straddle different worlds.

“This is long-form journalism at its finest.” —New York Times–bestselling author Fareed Zakaria

“Hessler’s signature is an unobtrusive and humorous first-person narrator breezily guiding the reader through places at once exotic and ordinary. . . . Hessler has an acute and far-ranging talent for drawing characters.” —Wall Street Journal

“Showcases Hessler’s gift for telling tales of cultural difference and mutual misunderstanding in a way that is both humorous and deeply empathetic. . . . Hessler is a deeply humane teller of true tales, a keen observer, a graceful stylist.” —The Atlantic

When Peter Hessler went to China in the late 1990s, he expected to spend a couple of peaceful years teaching English in the town of Fuling on the Yangtze River. But what he experienced - the natural beauty, cultural tension, and complex process of understanding that takes place when one is thrust into a radically different society - surpassed anything he could have imagined. Hessler observes firsthand how major events such as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the controversial consturction of the Three Gorges Dam have affected even the people of a remote town like Fuling.Poignant, thoughtful and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a place caught mid-river in time, much like China itself - a country seeking to understand both what it was and what it will one day become.