2025 Political Writing Book prize finalist

At the Edge of Empire

Edward Wong

Published by: Profile Books Ltd

Growing up, Edward Wong didn’t hear his father talk much about the older man’s life in China. Perhaps that’s why Wong found himself retracing the elder Wong’s footsteps through the borderlands of the Chinese empire, in his work as the New York Times’s Beijing correspondent. Hong Kong, Harbin, Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia. The lives of the two men weave together to form the thread connecting this grand yet personal account of 70 years of Chinese history.

 

Orwell Prize for Political Writing panel