The past and present are worlds apart

Writer of historical novels says it is wrong to impose our own modern values on figures from earlier times

Adam Williams says it is wrong to impose the values of today on historical figures.

The 64-year-old author and businessman says people are very much prisoners of their own times.

"I am a historical novelist. If I am writing about the 1100s, the people then were different. They thought in a different way, they had different standards, and the society they lived in had different values," he says.

Williams, speaking in his booklined, expansive apartment off Upper East Street in Beijing, has combined two remarkable careers: being one of the most prominent British business figures in China and a bestselling Chinese historical fiction writer at the same time.

He says the current trend of accusing historical figures of being supporters of slavery, racist colonialists or of some other beliefs now deemed politically incorrect could render the very process of writing about the past impossible.

"If you villainize every slaver in the United States before the Civil War, or in Europe or anywhere else, then the logic of that is that every Roman who ever lived was a villain. There becomes no virtue in anyone from the past," he says.

Williams remains best known for his trilogy, The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure, The Emperor's Bones and The Dragon's Tail, all published more than a decade ago and which fictionalize China's history from just before the Boxer Rebellion in the late 19th century to the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and beyond. The novels partly reflect his own history, since he is the fourth generation of his family to have lived in China, starting with his two maternal great-grandfathers, one a railway engineer who came to China in 1893 and the other a medical missionary who arrived three years later.

"My grandmother used to tell tales of their lives here, and I thought some of them could be shifted and shaped into authentic characters. I didn't tell their actual stories, though. I made up my own. It is probably a good thing that none of them are alive to read the books, though," he says with a laugh.

The first of the series sold 100,000 copies, and in bookstores around the world the books still hold their positions on shelves in the narrow genre of Chinese historical fiction written by Westerners.

"China, until recently, has been rather sort of a specialist interest. There were quite a few writers in the 1920s. You have Robert Van Gulik with his Judge Dee historical mysteries in the 1930s. Various journalists have also written novels," he says.

Williams was born in Hong Kong but went to Radley College, the English public school, and then Oxford University, where he read English (lecturers there included author Iris Murdoch and poet WH Auden). He began his career as a journalist at the South China Morning Post in the late 1970s.

He quickly switched to business, however, finally ending up as group chief representative of Jardine Matheson, a company inextricably linked to China's history, with its associations with the Opium Wars of the 19th century. He retired in 2015 but remains an adviser

The company "has sort of moved on from firing people for not selling opium on Sunday", he says, laughing. "It is a very modern company now, a services conglomerate into real estate, insurance, hotels, retail and supermarkets. Many of Jardine's companies you know by their other names, like the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, for instance."

Williams, who still holds a number of other corporate positions, has had a ringside seat as China has emerged as a major economic power in the 40 years since Deng Xiaoping's administration launched reform and opening-up.

"After the recent (Communist Party of China 19th National) Congress meeting, China in its new era is saying that it has world-class businesses, its own way of doing things and will take its place among the great nations of the world," he says.

Williams believes China's major initiatives, such as Belt and Road, offer huge opportunities for the rest of the world to engage with it.

"China is actually a stable state in the world compared to some others that aren't so stable at the moment. There is a huge amount of investment going out of China, even with the current capital controls," he says.

"I can only think how Belt and Road could be good for Europe. China's door is open and I am surprised they (European governments) are not taking advantage of it."

Williams was also chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in China in the late 1990s and now sees huge opportunities for China and his own country, the United Kingdom, to establish a free-trade agreement based around services.

"I remember going to a meeting once with Wang Qishan (now China's vice-president) and he was praising the City of London as being the greatest port in the world, despite not having any ships docking or cargo going through it. This was because it provides the laws, the insurance and the finance for the shipping industry around the world," he says.

Williams' other big China connection is being the husband of Hong Ying, a very famous Chinese author in her own right.

"We met at the birthday party of a foreign correspondent friend of mine. I'd just had my first novel published and someone told me this woman was interested in writing, so I very kindly told her how to write a synopsis, letters to editors and how to get a book going, and she listened very politely and then left," he recalls.

"Someone then told me she had written numerous books that had been published in 20 different languages. I just wondered what she might have thought of this upstart."

The couple, who live Beijing but have other homes in Chongqing (where Hong is from) and Italy, have different approaches to writing.

"She is a much more private writer. When I write something, I want the world to hear my brilliant prose. She keeps it very much inside herself," Williams says.

"We sometimes do discuss our work. She did a wonderful job with the Chinese editions of my books, polishing the translations. The Chinese versions are probably much better than the English ones."

Williams says it took five years to write his first book, which runs to more than 800 pages, during weekends and holidays.

In addition to his trilogy, Williams has published a book set around the Spanish Civil War, The Book of the Alchemist, and is now working on another novel.

"It is a sort of medieval detective story using some of the back story of the Spanish Civil War book. I was struggling with it, but it is going well now," he says.

"I need to be alone and have quiet to write. It is not so much about having the time available but getting into the space where the story is in your mind."

andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/13/2018 page32)