From February 25 to March 23, Beijing will be awash in words, with not one, but two literary festivals bringing a slew of writers, poets and intellectuals to town—the Capital M Literary Festival (Feb. 25-March 4) and the Bookworm International Literary Festival (BLF) (March 9-23).

Pre-order Festival Tickets for Capital M's Literary Festival

Now in its sixth year, Beijing’s established lit fest BLF requires no introduction. But as a relative newcomer, the Capital Literary Festival could use one, especially since its considerably larger, attention-grabbing sister festival, the Shanghai International Literary Festival, is celebrating its 10th year at M on the Bund with such A-listers as Amy Tan (author of The Joy Luck Club), Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons), and—gasp!—HRH Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands.

Although these particular speakers won’t be at the Capital Literary Festival this year, 25 literature, economics and photography heavy-hitters will arrive in Beijing starting in late February for 21 events.

Capital Literary Festival co-organizer Tina Kanagaratnam says the difference in size and duration—the Shanghai festival hosts about 50 authors over a three-week period—is simple: Shanghai's festival has a longer history, as well as more support and space.

The M on the Bund

“The Shanghai festival started with one author its first year,” Kanagaratnam says. The next year saw the beginning of a cooperation with the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, and the festival has grown steadily since. Kanagaratnam expects the same to happen in Beijing.

As any party planner will tell you, the key to any successful event is location, location, location. When M on the Bund opened in 1999, it was mostly surrounded by government offices, but that didn’t stop the restaurant from becoming a destination. By the time the festival was up and running, a variety of establishments had appeared, and the location had become convenient enough to draw crowds for daily festival events.

“It’s in the restaurant’s [M on the Bund] DNA that it’s not just food,” says Kanagaratnam, and this impetus migrated north to Capital M when festival organizers realized that authors visiting Shanghai may also be willing to go to Beijing.

But traffic regulations around Qianmen—where Capital M looks over Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City and sits next to a major shopping destination—make it difficult to get to during a lunch break or even on a busy weekend afternoon.

Capital M may be genetically predestined to be more than just a restaurant, but the location, "being an operating restaurant," and having just one room in which to host events are presenting challenges to the festival's progress, says Kanagaratnam.

Another problem hampering the festival’s growth is China morphing from an international tour cred hotspot to just another stop on the circuit, she says.

Nevertheless, the reputation of the Shanghai festival is bringing in an increasingly diverse mix of talent, and expanding the network of people that festival organizers can cull for future speakers. Embassies and consulates in both cities in particular are keen to promote authors that have gained fame at home, but not abroad.

Capital M Literary Festival Line-up

In addition to a selection of international talent, this year's festival also boasts an intriguing mix of poets, nonfiction writers and super serious academics.

Jeff Fuchs will regale the audience with tales of being the only Westerner to trek the full Tea Horse Trail (March 1, 6pm), while photographers Shahidul Alam, Lois Connor, Rosa Maria Falvo and Jiang Jian will discuss the camera's role in social engagement (March 4, 5pm). “The Curious Cook,” Harold McGee (Feb. 25, 5pm) and Cheryl Tan (Feb. 25, 12:30pm) will make audiences drool with their foodie chats. The uber-popular Financial Times debate (March 3, 3:30pm) will return, along with a panel of foreign journalists working in China (March 4, 12:30pm).

While some may look at the event schedule and wonder at the lack of local talent, Kanagaratnam says that the combination of Capital M's location and the politically sensitive time of year means festival organizers are choosing to shy away from potentially controversial figures. But this year there will be a panel with Chinese wine writers (Feb. 25, 2pm) and many author events and panels covering local topics. The lack of Chinese authors on the roster also has to do with differing interests in topics and viewpoints between the foreign and local communities, she says.

Foreigners may love China, but “not the way a local does,” says Kanagaratnam. “It’s like the food. Michelle [Michelle Garnaut, founder of M on the Bund and Capital M] does a Western restaurant very well, but probably couldn’t do a Chinese restaurant very well.”

Maybe she’s right about the restaurant bit, but we’re willing to bet there’s something for everyone in the lineup, even if it’s only the chance to feel fancy and intellectual while sipping wine in the posh stateliness of Capital M.

Lois Conner

With her work hanging in the permanent collections of New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, the Australian National Gallery in Canberra, and over 15 others, and 10 photography books on Asia to her name, Lois Conner is one very accomplished photographer.

Since her first visit to China in 1984, much of Conner's work has focused on Asia, especially its landscapes. Believe us, your albums of China photos have nothing on hers. She's taken time to carefully document most aspects of life here—construction, destruction, people, and the ever-present lotus—in a way that captures the changes, challenges and ironies we see around us every day. Her 2011 book, Beijing Building, features 56 pages of images of construction in Beijing. Her stunning platinum print landscapes, shot with a 7” x 17” format banquet camera, explore the links between landscape and culture.

Conner's upcoming publication Beijing: Contemporary and Imperial trains a lens on shifts in the city's psyche, politics, and physical landscapes, changes Conner has been documenting for almost 30 years.

Shahidul Alam, Lois Conner, Rosa Maria Falvo, Jiang Jian: The PhotoBook: Recording Social Engagement (Panel), Sunday, March 4, 5pm

Harold McGee

Better known as the "Curious Cook," Harold McGee is an original gangster in the world of cooking chemistry, as well as a fascinating voice on the history of food and the art of cooking it. He has written two wildly influential books on cooking, including On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, first published in 1984.

He also writes a regular column, The Curious Cook, for The New York Times, and has had other pieces published in Nature, Health, the World Book Encyclopedia, Food & Wine, Fine Cooking and, naturally, Physics Today, often debunking common kitchen wisdom and recounting the evolution of, say, milk.

His 2010 book, Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes, is marketed as a companion to recipe books, a guide to properly preparing foods when recipes diverge or become confusing. We're hoping he'll weave in some advice especially for Chinese cooks, or at least those of us trying to do something Chinese in our kitchens.

Harold McGee: Chemistry in the Kitchen, Saturday, Feb. 25, 5pm

Anne Sebba

British biographer, lecturer, and journalist Anne Sebba is the author of nine books, most notably biographies of influential or controversial women throughout history, including Winston Churchill's mother Jennie and Mother Teresa. Her work examines the lives of women who stood out or were misunderstood in their time as they ran counter to social norms, as well as women, such as Laura Ashley, who influenced how women dressed and decorated their homes. Her book, Battling for News: The Rise of the Woman Reporter, showcases the history of female journalists that set out to cover conflicts and war zones and revolutionized war reporting.

Sebba plans to use her session to talk about her most recent book That Woman: The Duchess of Windsor and the Scandal that Brought Down a King that hit shelves in the UK in 2011. Sebba unearthed never-before-seen correspondence and diaries that allowed her to paint a unique portrait of one of the 20th century's most elegant and vilified women, accused of fascist sympathies, keeping Nazi lovers and learning bizarre sexual techniques while she lived in Shanghai and Beijing from 1924-1925 to let the dust settle around her divorce. And who can forget the time King Edward abdicated the throne in the 1930s just to be with the American divorcée who the British public still largely believe stole their king?

Anne Sebba: That Woman – Or the Duchess of Style?, Saturday, March 3, 11am

Tom Rob Smith

In 2011 British novelist Tom Rob Smith published his third in a series of thrillers set in a pitch-perfect rendition of Stalinist Russia. The first in the series, Child 44, was long-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize and won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award that year. The second, The Secret Speech, and the most recent, Agent 6, both follow disgraced MGB Agent Leo Demidov as he investigates gruesome child murders—based on the real-life crimes of Ukrainian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, the Rostov Ripper—in Soviet Russia, a place where “crime does not exist.”

Praise for Smith's work generally revolves around his outstanding portrait of Soviet-era Russia, capturing the paranoia, secret police forces and the family, but especially the plight of orphans.

He'll be speaking with Beijing-based teen author Kathryn Chua (whose recent debut novel Midnight Walking explores teen angst and vampires) about Soviet serial killers, vampires, and other elements concerning “the dark side” of the novel.

Tom Rob Smith: From Child 44 to Agent 6, Saturday, March 3, 2pm

Alan Hollinghurst

Alan Hollinghurst is a five-time novelist, poet, editor and translator—of Jean Racine's Bazajet, no less.

Hollinghurst's novel The Line of Beauty won the 2004 Man Booker Prize, and when his next novel, The Stranger's Child, came out in 2011 it was long-listed for that year's Man Booker Prize. So it should come as no surprise that festival organizers are expecting a full house for his talk.

Hollinghurst says that he is less worried about offering readers characters to identify with than he is about portraying them passionately and analyzing them deeply. His novel The Line of Beauty has been hailed for its character development, and verbal sketches of the movers and shakers of 1980s London. The book's main character, Nick Guest, is a gay man in a largely straight world, and the novel goes on to explore relevant themes of class, sex and money that were central to the time. Meanwhile, critics describe his latest novel, The Stranger's Child, with words like “erudite,” ”sleek,” “affecting,” and “seductive.”

Hollinghurst will focus his session on the art of creating a character's biography, giving a character an entire life from which to draw inspiration for what they do on the page.

Alan Hollinghurst: Private Lives, Saturday, Feb. 26, 5pm