At Nury Vittachi’s birth, civil war broke out. “The two incidents were not connected. At least, I don’t think so,” he said. When he was a toddler, gunmen threatened the family, so they fled to the airport and bought tickets out of their homeland (then called Ceylon)on the first flight to anywhere.
After several nomadic years, Vittachi settled in Hong Kong, where his way with words and nose for news made him famous for columns such as “Lai See” in the South China Morning Post and “Travellers’ Tales” in the Far Eastern Economic Review.
He wrote a book which sold out in 10 days and had to be reprinted six times. So he became an author, and wrote several books which were picked up by major publishers around the world. He is best known for his comedy crime novel series The Feng Shui Detective.
Vittachi has become a spokesman for authors in Asia, having been instrumental in starting Asia’s biggest writers’ conference, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, a quarterly journal called the Asia Literary Review, and the Man Asia Literary Prize, a spin-off from the Man Booker Prize. He can be contacted through the website at www.thewritersvillage.com.