Lesley Duncan, (United Kingdom) author of A Towering Presence
I am full of admiration for your success in pulling together the human story of the doomed lovers with your really admirable overview of the artistic and intellectual ferment and political complexity of those time in the great international city. And random horror too. ... Is there any modern equivalent of Shanghai and its accommodation of so many different cultures? Maybe New York would be the nearest to it. But one feels something immensely human and grand was lost ... .