Nury Vittachi

Nury Vittachi (born 2 October 1958 in Ceylon) is a journalist and author based in Hong Kong. He wrote the comedy-crime novel series The Feng Shui Detective, published in many languages around the world, as well as non-fiction works and novels for children.

Nury Vittachi
Vittachi on Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2012
Born (1958-10-02) 2 October 1958
Ceylon
Pen nameSam Jam, Lai See, Mr.Jam
OccupationAuthor
LanguageEnglish
CitizenshipSri Lanka & Hong Kong
Notable worksThe Feng Shui Detective
SpouseMary-Lacey Vittachi
Children3
RelativesTarzie Vittachi (father)

Journalism career

Vittachi started his journalism career on the Morning Telegraph in Sheffield in the north of England before moving to London's Fleet Street, then to Hong Kong, where he wrote the gossip columns "Lai See" (see red envelope) and "Spice Trader" for the South China Morning Post until 1997. Collected editions of the columns under titles such as Only in Hong Kong went through numerous print runs. At the Far Eastern Economic Review, Vittachi ran a similar region-wide column called "Travellers' Tales".

From the mid-1980s, Vittachi's stock-in-trade included absurd-but-true stories, funny signs, ludicrous menu items, curious business or personal names, instructions for idiots, dumb criminal tales and so on. As Internet usage grew from the mid-1990s, many of these became standard themes of web humour and currently run on his blog www.misterjam.com. Vittachi writes a column called "Unbelievable!" in the Asian edition of Reader's Digest, in which he relates amusing anecdotes about Asian life.

In 2015, Vittachi began contributing to the Hong Kong Free Press. As of 2019, he is no longer a contributor.

Since 2019, Vittachi has alleged that the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests were supported by the Central Intelligence Agency through the Oslo Freedom Foundation, the Albert Einstein Institution, and the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies.[1]

Literary work

Vittachi has published a series of novels, The Feng Shui Detective, in which the protagonists, a feng shui master from China, a young woman from Australia, an Indian mystic and various pan-Asian bad guys, explore Asia-Pacific. Five novels had been published by 2009, and many school age filmmakers have bid for screen rights.

Vittachi is founding editor of the Asia Literary Review, which has published work by writers such as David Mitchell, Maxine Hong Kingston, Hanif Kureishi, Thomas Keneally, William Dalrymple and Romesh Gunesekera. The journal, published since 1999, was designed for Asia-related works "unpublished in English."

He founded the Hong Kong International Literary Festival Limited in 2000 with Jane Camens.

Vittachi made numerous approaches to organizations to finance an Asian literary prize, and in 2003 spoke to senior officials at the Man Investment Group, backers of the Man Booker Prize. They declined, being in the midst of preparations to launch the Man Booker International Prize. Furthermore, relatively few novels were being published from Asia.

In 2005, Vittachi attended the Vogel prize ceremony, an award for unpublished manuscripts in Australia. On his return to Hong Kong, he combined that idea with his journal's slogan, and proposed the creation of a prize for works as yet unpublished in English. After making an impassioned speech to the Man Group's board of directors in January 2006, he secured their agreement to fund the Man Asian Literary Prize. But other individuals involved told him that as an Asian author he should be trying to win the prize, not administering it or judging it. A panel of judges from outside Asia was appointed. The dispute hit international headlines with allegations of racial insensitivity.

He is also noted for his role in founding the Asia Literary Review, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and was the chairman of the judges of the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008.[2]

Personal life

Vittachi fled Sri Lanka due to political persecution in 1960, when he was 2.

He mentioned that many people supported and gave advice in his trip. One policeman said via phone "The police is coming. You better go."

He later went to Britain and met his girlfriend Mary Lacey-Vittachi (later his wife). They married in 1987. They went to HK the same year for their honeymoon and stayed there since. He currently lives in Hong Kong with his wife and children. His father is the Sri Lankan journalist Tarzie Vittachi; his uncle, the late Dr V.P. Vittachi, was a major shareholder of the biggest conglomerate in Sri Lanka, the Stassen Group.

Bibliography

Non-fiction
  • Reliable Sauce (1990)
  • Only in Hong Kong (1993)
  • Travellers' Tales (1994)
  • Goodbye Hong Kong, Hello Xianggang (1997)
  • The Ultimate Only in Hong Kong Collection (1998)
  • Guardians of the Treasure House (1998)
  • Riding the Millennial Storm (1998)
  • North Wind (1999)
  • City of Dreams (2006)
  • The Kama Sutra of Business (2007)
  • The Other Side of the Story: A Secret War in Hong Kong (2020)[3]

Fiction
  • The Hong Kong Joke Book (1995)
  • Asian Values (1996)
  • The Feng Shui Detective (2000)
  • The Feng Shui Detective Goes South (2002)
  • The Feng Shui Detective’s Casebook (2003)
  • The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics (2006)
  • Mr. Wong Goes West (2008)
  • The Curious Diary of Mr. Jam (2012)

Children’s books
  • Ludwig and the Chewy Chunks Café (1994)
  • Robot Junior (1998)
  • The Amazing Life of Dead Eric (2001)
  • Dead Eric Gets a Virus (2002)
  • The True History of Santa Claus (2004)
  • The Day it Rained Letters (2005)
  • The Paper Princess (2005)
  • May Moon and the Secrets of the CPAs (2006)
  • Mozzle and the Giant (2006)
  • The Place You’re Meant to Be (2006)
  • The World’s Funniest Book of Poems (2006)
  • Twilight in the Land of Nowhen (2006)
  • Jeri Telstar, The Homework Hero (2008)
  • Jeri Telstar, And the Small Black Dog that Talked Like the President (2008)

References
  1. "Writer reveals CIA funding in HK protests". The Standard.
  2. "Contributors to the August 2009 issue of The Australian Literary Review". The Australian. 5 August 2009. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  3. "Writer reveals CIA funding in HK protests". The Standard.
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