Meet the Author: Chasing the Chinese Dream by Nick Holdstock

In Chasing the Chinese Dream journalist and writer Nick Holdstock tells the story of modern China through the people who are living it. Hear the fascinating stories behind the book at this Business Co

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China is undergoing the biggest and fastest societal and economic change in human history. Driving this dizzying transformation is the idea of the ‘Chinese Dream’, the promise that in the new China, anyone can make it. Journalist and writer Nick Holdstock has travelled the length of this huge country in order to find out the reality behind this rhetoric – from the factory-owner, to the noodle seller, from the karaoke maids to the hoteliers, and from the deserted, ageing countryside to the young and overcrowded cities.

Chasing the Chinese Dream follows a cast of extraordinary characters: we meet the people getting rich; running factories and buying luxury cars and Louis Vuitton bags. But we also meet those left behind, trapped by a system which forces long hours and no prospects upon them. A spell-binding and magical narrative, this book looks to tell the story of modern China through the people who are living it.

Previous Meet the Author events hosted by the Business Confucius Institute at the University of Leeds have featured speakers such as Jemimah Steinfeld, Jonathan Geldart, and Xinran sharing stories of modern China. If you enjoyed those events you will love this talk by Nick Holdstock.

At the event there will be a book stall provided by Blackwell’s with copies of the book available to purchase.

Event format

For further information, please contact The Business Confucius Institute at the University of Leeds at Confucius@leeds.ac.uk

About the speaker

Nick Holdstock is a journalist and writer. His writing can be found in Vice, The LA Review of Books, n+1, The Independent, The Dublin Review, Times Literary Supplement, the Edinburgh Review, Dissent and Salon.com amongst others. He worked for many years under Isabel Hilton at China Dialogue – part of the Guardian environment network. He is the author ofChina’s Forgotten People, a biography of Xinjiang. His first novel, The Casualties, was published in 2015. He writes regularly on China for the London Review of Books.