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China Cuckoo A quirky Chinese Peter Mayle style story. China Cuckoo is the true story of a witty and eccentric Sinophile Englishman and his Chinese tree-change. It’s set in Moganshan a dilapidated, beautiful Chinese mountain village once favoured as a summer retreat by Shanghai’s saints and sinners. The author, Mark Kitto, a former commodities trader and magazine publisher, is the first westerner to return and live in the village fifty years on. Rejecting the corporate world, and the glamour of Shanghai, Mark eventually persuades his urbane Chinese wife to make Moganshan their permanent home. With a toddler in tow they take the bold step of moving their lives to the isolated village, taking over an old brothel to start a western style cafe. China Cuckoo takes us into Kitto’s entertaining and painstaking days weaving through village politics and bureaucratic farce to gain a foothold, livelihood and respect on the mountain top. Mark’s story is an illustration of past and present China’s relations with foreigners. It describes, in the words of one who has suffered and benefited from both, the risks and rewards of going China Cuckoo. Reviews Eccentric expat Britons have historically made good fiction but Mark Kitto doesn't need to make it up. A fantastic old-school, three-piece suited adventure from a man who knows China far better than most. An Englishman with a wanderlust, the urge to run away and a fascination for the Far East finds himself in Deng Xiaopeng’s China as the door creaks open and foreigners are granted access to a communist leviathan. Published UK 2009 (Constable Robinson) Hong Kong International Literary Festival, Beijing Bookworm Literary Festival, Glasgow’s Aye Write Festival, Essex Writer’s Festival, Australia 2009 (Murdoch Books) Sydney Writer’s Festival, USA 2009 (Skyhorse) Published as Chasing China. Mark Kitto MARK KITTO finally found his vocation in China where he created a unique publishing empire. He made millions but then lost it all to his Communist Party partners. Rejecting corporate life he now lives peacefully with his Chinese wife and family in a village built by missionaries. He also writes a column on China for the UK’s Prospect Magazine.
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