Diary – 4 August 2006

‘The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and …no other task is of any consequence.’ So Palinurus, aka Cyril Connolly, warns in the opening sentence of The Unquiet Grave. This ruthless reminder made me totally depressed as I published my first book in English in Hong Kong last week. Obviously it’s not a masterpiece. But what could I have done? The only thing I had published before was a Chinese translation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. English is my second language and my book is in no way erudite. It is merely an anthology of articles I had written for a Hong Kong newspaper, on subjects as diverse as Einstein, Pope Alexander VI, Bobby Fischer and a number of parochial issues, as well as about my childhood, which was split between a typical Chinese home and an English boarding school. But a nascent author is mercilessly seduced by the prospect of seeing and reading his words in print between hard-covers and of holding his book in his hands. So despite a sense of resigned mediocrity, I saw this whole process through last week with extraordinary excitement, experiencing for the first time that egoism of signing books for those reckless enough to buy them.

At first I hesitated, because he might have said no and I would have lost face; but egged on by my mercenary publisher, who obviously wanted his name, I asked Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, to write a foreword to my anthology. It was also thought that his being Chancellor of Oxford University would cut some ice among the Chinese book buyers. Luckily he agreed and wrote so generous a foreword that he might have committed perjury. He too happened to be in Hong Kong last week, promoting his own book Not Quite A Diplomat.