Simon Winchester, best-selling author, journalist, and broadcaster, has worked as a foreign correspondent for most of his career and lectures widely at universities, geological and historical societies, and libraries. His current book is the New York Times best-seller The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, the remarkable story of Joseph Needham, the eccentric and adventurous scientist who fell in love with China and whose own work there unveils the epic story of that magisterial country.
The author of 19 books, including the best-sellers The Professor and the Madman, an account of the men behind the Oxford English Dictionary, A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, and The Map that Changed the World, about the nineteenth century geologist William Smith, Winchester specializes in eccentric, obsessive geniuses. He is praised for his skills as a masterful and riveting storyteller both on the page and in lectures.
Winchester’s journalistic work, mainly for The Guardian and the Sunday Times, has landed him in Belfast, Washington, DC, New Delhi, New York, London, and Hong Kong, where he covered such stories as the Ulster crisis, the creation of Bangladesh, the fall of President Marcos, the Watergate affair, the Jonestown Massacre, the assassination of Egypt’s President Sadat, the recent death and cremation of Pol Pot, and, in 1982, the Falklands War. During this conflict he was arrested and spent three months in prison in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego on spying charges.
Although he graduated from Oxford in 1966 with a degree in geology, Winchester only spent a year working as a geologist in the Ruwenzori Mountains in western Uganda and on oil rigs in the North Sea, before joining his first newspaper in 1967. He now works principally as an author, although he contributes to a number of American and British magazines and journals, including Harper’s, The Smithsonian, National Geographic Magazine,The Spectator, Granta, theNew York Times, and The Atlantic Monthly. He was appointed Asia-Pacific Editor of Conde Nast Traveler at its inception in 1987, later becoming Editor-at-Large. His writings have won him several awards including Britain’s Journalist of the Year. He writes and presents television films, including a series on the final colonial years of Hong Kong and on a variety of other historical topics, and is a frequent contributor to the BBC radio program, From Our Own Correspondent. Winchester is a fellow at London’s Royal Geological Society.
He lives with is wife in New York City and has a small farm in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.
Praise for Simon Winchester:
"We immensely enjoyed having Simon Winchester at our 2009 China Forum in Shanghai. With his marvelous oratory skills he delighted the audience and sparked the kind of intellectual curiosity one develops in hallowed halls of academia but has since long buried. Simon's engaging style inspires you to return to that thirst for knowledge and motivates you to dig deeper into the wealth of rich history he is deservedly famous for portraying."
—Grace Hung, Director of Strategic Initiatives, CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets
Praise for The Man Who Loved China:
“In The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman, builds on his success in writing about eccentric British intellectuals. Needham makes a great subject. . . Winchester [has] extraordinary narrative skills. . . In retelling Needham’s story, Winchester focuses on the inventiveness of the Chinese people, whose creativity once surpassed that of all other civilizations. If this resourcefulness can be renewed and harnessed in the service of sustainability, then perhaps there is hope not only for China but for the planet.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Needham lived a life of grand adventure, and Winchester presents its dangers and pleasures with panache . . . . the exhilaration of [Needham’s] life is immediately engaging. And so are the colorful characters who come his way.”
—New York Times Book Review
“A revealing biography. . . a natural fit for Winchester. . . a vivid portrayal that enlivens the ranks of the science biography. . . Needham’s voyages form a cinematic travelogue at the heart of the book, as he roams from the East China Sea to the Silk Road hunting for clues to the country’s technological past . . . Winchester successfully depicts Needham as a complex and driven man, with enviably diverse talents, boundless curiosity, charm, and a few foibles. . . The Man Who Loved China should stir our interest in China’s glorious past.”
—Seed magazine
“If you get into a conversation in a bar with Mr. Winchester, I suspect you’ll be there past closing. . . Captivating. . . Fans of Mr. Winchester know that he can make the most obsure topic seem as if it should be on the front page.”
—Wall Street Journal
“[A] skilled storyteller. . . What a story it turns out to be. The Man Who Loved China is a charming literary and cultural adventure that captures the unadorned brilliance and infectious enthusiasm of this remarkable man, with his outsized intellectual ambition and his endearing zest for life. . . Winchester is an engaging writer and brisk storyteller.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Because Winchester is such a fantastic storyteller, you emerge with a clearer picture of a mysterious country.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Neeham’s story is phenomenal. . . The man was fearless in love and life. . . [Winchester] skillfully keep[s] his narrative from bogging down. . . leav[es] readers crying out ‘more, more.’”
—USA Today
“There’s a brilliance to the title of Winchester’s biography because even as it implies that this one man may have loved the civilization to an extent greater than the vast majority of the rest of us, the words still strike a chord with anyone who has been bitten by the Asia bug. . . There is much to learn from The Man Who Loved China, an enjoyable, breezy read.”
—Salon.com
“Needham, a brilliant Cambridge don, was. . . the man who dragged China’s reputation in the West from the dustbin. . . Winchester does a lively job of helping readers to see the China that so entranced Needham. He also re-creates the fury with which the ever-curious Needham tore through the Chinese countryside, exploring the Chinese origin of everything from the orange to the magnetic compass. The more he learned, the more awed Needham was by the depth and breadth of early Chinese ingenuity. . . With all eyes turned to China this summer, those interested in the achievements of the Olympics’ behemoth host will do well to take a tour with this remarkable guide.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“A masterful biography . . . Winchester deftly captures his complex personality, a romantic adventurer propelled by intellectual curiosity . . . Winchester has brought Needham vividly to life.”
—Boston Globe
“As he so ably did in The Professor and the Madman, Winchester strips away the donnish placidity of English university life in The Man Who Loved China to reveal a remarkable set of characters, none more so than Needham himself. . . This is a wonderfully entertaining book. . . Winchester deftly probes the nexus of the public and private facets of one of scholarship’s most profound minds and eccentric personalities. Few biographers have had better material or so skillfully given it its due.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“Joseph Needham was one of those rare persons who are so good at so many things that they astonish and irritate the rest of us. . . Happily for Winchester and his readers, Needham’s life was a great deal more than scholarly.”
—Seattle Times
“The spellbinding storyteller unravels the history of China through the life of Cambridge scientist Jacob Needham.”
—New Orleans Times-Picayune
“Simon Winchester, a masterly storyteller, follows Needham on 11 expeditions across 30,000 miles of rugged, war-torn terrain in a “damp, damnable” Chevrolet truck, as he searches for the Chinese origin of almost everything, from the abacus to the zoetrope. The author of 19 books, including The Professor and the Madman, an account of the men behind the Oxford English Dictionary, Winchester specializes in eccentric, obsessive geniuses. With Joseph Needham, he’s found another splendid specimen.”
—The Oregonian (Portland)
“[A] fascinating read, filled with expeditions across war-ravaged China, harrowing escapes from the Japanese army, more than a few amorous adventures, and path-breaking scholarship undertaken within the ancient rooms of Cambridge University. . . Winchester’s smart biography does more than tell the story of Needham and his great book. Perhaps most significantly, Winchester opens up a window into China’s past.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Winchester, so skilled at making the triumphs, tragedies and details of real life read like an engaging novel, portrays a Needham who lives up to the eccentric billing of the title. Still, Winchester’s primary purpose – which he achieves as well as you’d expect from this master research – is to depict meticulously a Needham whose work answered important questions. . . Just as Needham unlocked the mysteries of China’s role in science, Winchester has unlocked the mysteries of Needham. They’re mysteries worth reading.”
—Miami Herald