PICNIC IN TIANANMEN SQUARE
the author
George writes well about life in a Chinese provincial university and provides a glimpse into life in China itself - a must read for anyone visiting China.
George’s enjoyable tale, narrated in the voice of Dr Charles Vincent, a minor academic from a very minor university who just happened to be there at that time, is set against the backdrop of student protests leading up to the tragic events of Beijing in early June 1989. It is not by chance that George publishes his debut novel now because June 4, 2009 is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
For many years Terrence George was a travel-hardened minor academic managing British higher education with collaborative partners worldwide. He has also been involved in various projects as a consultant for the United Nations. Travel has been the nature of his career, including spending about seven months in China. Being a professor, he has about fifty or so academic publications (journals, readers, conference papers, and so on), which includes short spells as a technical editor for a shipping journal, but nothing in fiction until now (admittedly, some of his academic and technical publications could be construed as fiction…).