The eighth annual Shanghai International Literary Festival (that’s SILF for tied tongues) starts tomorrow! Get pumped and get clicking.

Dario Castagno kicks off book events; get the full list here

Read our interviews with Unpolished Gem author Alice Pung and Country Driving author Peter Hessler, who has unfortunately since canceled his appearance.

See our picks of the best authors hitting up the list fest this year

If you can’t make an event, download podcasts of all the SILF talks here. The best part? It’s free. While you’re there, take your time to browse the podcasts from last year.

That annoying person tapping away at his / her laptop at every Literary Festival event? Yup, that’s us—live blogging the entire talk. Drop by and say hello, and feel free to bring along some chocolate. Find timed transcripts of most of the talks online here.


in other (related) news...

The Suzhou Literary Festival also starts tomorrow and runs until March 19th. If you won’t be able to make it to certain authors' sessions here in SH - some authors from both fests overlap - or if you’re heading to Suzhou, check it out.

Tess Johnston, Junot Diaz, David Grossman, Graham Freudenberg and Linda Jaivin will all be making appearances at both lit fests. Suzhou’s festival will also host British Jamaican Rastafarian author and poet Benjamin Zephaniah, Notes on a Scandal author Zoe Heller, and Amitav Ghosh, whose most recent work, Sea of Poppies, is set just before the Opium Wars. All Suzhou Lit Fest events are RMB30 and include a drink.