The Shanghai Socialite: Wallis Warfield Spencer

Speaker: Paul French

Moderator: Michelle Garnaut

Event Details

Date: 8 March (Saturday)

Time: 5:30pm-6:30pm

Venue: Soho House Studio, 2/F

Price: HKD298

Language: English

Format: Talk

Category: Culture/ History/ China

Biography:

Paul French worked in Shanghai for many years. His award-winning book Midnight in Peking was selected as a New York Times Bestseller and BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week. City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir received much praise with The Economist. Both are currently in development for films. His most recent book, Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson, was described by the New York Times as ‘…beautifully told through meticulous historical research and examination of contemporary literature and film’.

Description:

Her Lotus Year explores the transformative year Wallis Warfield Spencer, later the Duchess of Windsor, spent in China, a pivotal period that shaped her life and style. From her humble beginnings in Baltimore to marrying the man who would abdicate the British throne for her, Wallis’s time in China was more than just a cultural awakening. While the British establishment painted her as a morally dubious figure influenced by foreign agents, historian French uncovers a different story—one of courage and potential espionage, where Wallis may have secretly acted as a courier for the US government amidst China’s civil war. This untold chapter reveals a woman of resilience and hidden complexity.

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The Hong Kong International Literary Festival (HKILF) inspires the joy of reading by bringing the world’s writers and stories to Hong Kong’s diverse communities. A dynamic year-round programme and an annual festival offer dialogue, entertainment and perspective, while the Young Readers Festival (YRF) motivates students to engage with all aspects of the written word, improving communication skills, while nurturing the art of writing and storytelling.

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