The controversial American author Lionel Shriver is set to bookend two major literary festivals in Hong Kong and Singapore, both running from November 4-13.

She will open the Hong Kong International Literary Festival with a talk about The Mandibles (2016), a darkly satiric novel, set in a near future in which Mexico builds a wall against a deeply indebted US that has been forced to rely on a currency controlled by China and Russia.

Her November 4 talk will be part of a fundraising dinner at The American Club. That will be followed two days later – which is two days before the US election – by a public Q&A at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre. With the possibility of a real-life Donald Trump presidency on the horizon, truth may be stranger than fiction. Read more