This year's Shanghai International Literary Festival lineup on their desert island books

‘If I had to live alone on a desert island with one book, I think it would be Dream of the Red Chamber... There have been so many scholars studying the book, from aspects of different subjects, such as history, music, painting, food culture, traditional Chinese medicine, etc. Their studies have been going on for a long time and it seems they always discover something new from the book. I guess I would find a way to keep myself busy with this book.’ 

‘I would select The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse as it is entertaining enough not to lower my spirits when cut off from humanity yet intellectually and spiritually challenging. Under the circumstances, I would go for the original edition Glasperlenspiel to get my rusty German back in shape: I could be on the island a long time and as Mark Twain said, learning German is “what eternity was made for”.’

‘It would have to be Darwin’s On the Origin of Species... Not only is it full of astonishing ideas – but it is also brimming with thought-provoking insight and is beautifully written. As he says in the final paragraph, “There is grandeur in this view of life...” I would hope that perspective might sustain me and catalyse my continuing curiosity about other life on my island!’ 

‘I would take Kozuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Not many books have delved so deeply into a simple argument: what makes us human? Ishiguro peels back our humanity layer after layer, asking the same question over and over – what makes us different from the rest? Is it the arts? The soul? Culture? Morals? Friendship? Hope? Fear? Love? As the world turns towards the unknown – competing with the AI for the first time in the history of mankind – perhaps the only thing that could save us might be this simple fact of the quality that makes us human. Imagining myself all alone on an island floating lost in an ocean, I guess I would take my probable last chance on Earth to think about the loved ones I left behind somewhere – not on the complicated level I used to, but very basically as dear human beings.’

‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X. As a 12-year-old this was the first book I read that was over 100 pages. I considered it quite the achievement. Since then it has become a source of inspiration and strength that I call upon whenever the world seems to be getting the best of me. It’s a timeless classic that puts our condition into perspective.’

‘My desert island read must not evoke waterlogged, sweltering claustrophobia. A brittle-paged paperback beckons from my shelf: Forbidden Journey by Ella Maillart who made a 1930s odyssey from Peking to Kashmir. Reading it will evoke other famous writers who ventured into then-Turkestan (today’s Xinjiang) and the desert “where those who enter never emerge”. Especially Maillart’s travelling companion Peter Fleming (News from Tartary) who was obsessed with discovering why nobody really knew what was going on out there. Food for thought? Maillart’s travel kit – Quaker Oats, knee-boots, and a revolver – contrast with my minimalist tropical gear. But damn, will I ever escape the sand?’ 

‘I would carry The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. In one sense, the long poem is about a man stranded on a deserted island, but at the same time, it is much more than personal; it is also universal in that it blends the anthropological, philosophical, mythological, metaphysical in a spatial form, in which a reader too can try to “shore these fragments against his ruins,” and read it again and again.’