Stephen McCarty is the former Literary Editor of the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong. He has moderated at the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Ubud

Writers' and Readers' Festival, Bali and the Singapore Writers' Festival, and likes to think his sessions are pitched somewhere between the circus and a Parisian literary salon. "A giant of world literature"; "a master of the written and spoken word"; and "certain to seize a major literary prize soon" are some of the things the media haven't said about him. But he hopes they will, one day.