Author and journalist Pallavi Aiyar will discuss her book Smoke and Mirrors, a personal account of her years spent living and working in China. Moderated by Siddhartha Deb, Writer in Residence at The New School Pallavi Aiyar is the Beijing-based China Bureau Chief for The Hindu group of publications. She has reported from across China for over six years. She is the winner of the 2007 Prem Bhatia Memorial Award for excellence in political reporting and analysis, the youngest ever recipient of the prize. She was also awarded a Reuters Foundation Fellowship at Oxford in the same year. Aside from her work as a journalist, she has taught news writing to students at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and served as an advisor to the Confederation of Indian Industry on China-related issues.
Smoke and Mirrors is a smart, insightful book about modern China. What sets Aiyar’s work apart is that it is not written by an academic or expert, nor is it told from either a Western or Chinese viewpoint…… she has discovered a way of bridging her native and adopted homes. As someone well acquainted with the problems of Asian development, she easily sees past the smoke and mirrors of China’s shiny new metropolises” International Herald Tribune“