Welcome to my new home in Thursday's Jakarta Post. I happened to be born on a Thursday, so I am happy to have found a comfy space within the pages of this auspicious day!

Anyway on with the show! It was yet another lazy afternoon by the sea in Sanur. My job: To interview leading UK literary agent Toby Eady, the husband of Chinese author Xinran, who appeared in my last column.

Toby has been a driving force in promoting and translating Chinese literature over the past twenty years and is one of the world's most passionate voices for Asian writers.

I was lucky enough to meet Toby Eady in New Zealand at the 2007 Auckland Writers Festival. We were being interviewed amongst a team of publishers on a panel discussing trends in literature, how to get published and how to gate-crash writers' festivals (like I do)!

I was fascinated by Toby's life experiences and his never-ending pearls of wisdom for budding writers. He has story-upon-story to tell of writers and publishers, peppered with tales of famous media folk who would probably rather not be mentioned in the press!

As I chatted to Toby about his extraordinary life, I began to wonder: Is there anything Toby Eady has not done? I have never met someone who has led so many lives in so many parts of the world.

But let's start with Toby's mother, the late Mary Wesley, best-selling author of The Camomile Lawn.

"My mother thought everyone was cleverer than her and suddenly at the age of seventy decided to write," said Toby.

"She wrote in her own style that was not educated and from a perspective that women really loved. Her stories were based on her own life and really surprised people. She broke all the rules but was a great humanitarian who deeply respected people."

The fact that she decided to have each of her children by different men clearly indicates she was a woman before her time! Toby did not meet his biological father until he was seventeen. He recalled how Mary had been asked "how do you write"? and her answer was simply, "with a large wastepaper basket".

Toby's education included a number of years of schooling in Germany, followed by several years at university.

"I studied friendship at Oxford University," he said with a smile.

"You had the time to make great friends. My lecturer said to me, 'I don't know what sort of degree you will end up with, but get on with it and get rich quick'. Growing up after the Second World War I didn't believe the education system had any merit but it was the only way forward. In school, we were only taught about victory -- in fact, history was a different set of victories."

But let's take a look at Toby Eady's claim to literary fame with the renowned Jung Chang, author of best-selling novel, Wild Swans.

Toby Eady was the literary agent of Jung Chang and his vision and faith in Jung Chang's story is legendary.

"Wild Swans was an extraordinary experience," said Eady. "This is a true publishing story. The person who commissioned the book from me was fired before the book was even published. The UK publishers were just not interested. They wanted to print only 5,000 copies."

Toby decided to take the bold leap and launch Wild Swans in Australia and in just two months had sold a quarter of a million copies. In Japan it sold 1.7 million copies and by the time it was launched in Holland, Jung Chang's mother was coming along for the ride, appearing in interviews alongside her daughter. Months later Jung Chang visited New Zealand and "was treated like a celebrity".

"It's a question of timing," he said about the success of Wild Swans. "I can do everything for you that I think is right for your book and the publisher can get in into bookshops but there is still no guarantee anyone will buy it."

You could say the timing was also right with Eady's introduction to Xinran by Jung Chang.

"But every major Chinese book I have been involved in has come out of Australasia."

By now, curiosity was getting the better of me. Why China?

"When I was 17, I studied Chinese history and in the 60's I began trading with China. I was criticized for dealing with communists."

After China, Toby spent three years working in Kerala, Calcutta and Delhi in India. The experience "changed my life" reminisced Toby, adding "it made me realize the education I had, had very little purpose in the world".

After India, he eventually settled in America.

"England was in economic recession. I went to America because England was so stuffy and they supported me there.

"With the failure of the Vietnam War, writers were trying to analyze what had happened. With all their universities and all their wealth, they could not understand why they lost. It was a time of self-criticism and self-awareness."

But it is Toby's immense sense of justice for all humanity that I find so deeply moving. Many of our discussions ended up treading delicately on the issues of war and peace around the world.

Toby lost his grandparents in the Holocaust and grew up in the shadow of World War II witnessing hunger marches, human despair and the psychological damage of the effects of war.

"In the 50's and 60's I didn't want to live with my memories. My teachers at school were all mentally wounded by WWII. I love books because it's an escape. A good book is sharing your observations.

"I said to my children after 9/11 happened, 'I apologize to you'. We have just lived through 55 years of peace and now the rest will be at war and we haven't examined why. I have worked in the Middle-East and I used to teach Middle-Eastern politics in the U.S. I saw the world from their (Middle East) perspective.

"I am at a stage in my life when I am reflecting a lot. You want your children to be safe and comfortable."

We meandered into landscapes of conflict; of his time spent in Israel working for the Peace movement, at a Palestine refugee camp, in Russia making movies and meditating in Tibet.

"I have never been bored since I started the literary agency. I have been drunk, sober, met interesting people -- narcissistic people, people who destroy themselves, people who only had a joy for writing for themselves and not for other people. The stimulus of meeting people like that ... it's not trading on a computer or in mortgages."

I asked him if he had ever thought of writing about his life.

"If you work with great writers, editing six books a year, you don't want to write.

"I would like to be remembered as having been an agent who has produced 10 books that made people think; books that have not been written by English people. As an agent I want to tell people that there is another side, to tell a story about China that uses a different language," he said.

"Great books come from nowhere. The classic writers had it and taught it. You can find books and you can find writers but you can't find a common language for the world. An agent dreams of finding those writers who write something you have never imagined who write from a totally different perspective. If you are lucky you will see that originality once in every seven years."

I don't believe you could wish for a better literary agent than Toby Eady. His authors are treated like family, with care and respect, in the purest sense of the word.

I left the interview feeling blessed to have spent time with such a visionary; a man for all seasons of the utmost charm and eloquence.

Janet DeNeefe is the owner of Casa Luna and Indus Restaurants, author of Fragrant Rice, and founder and director of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. She also runs the Casa Luna Cooking School.

Popular

To my horror, it’s just a movie!

RI, Australia strengthen partnership on taxing crypto assets

Pentagon chief congratulates Prabowo on being elected President