As part of our video memoir series, OPC Foundation President Bill Holstein interviewed author, photojournalist Audrey Topping about a range of topics, including her family’s history in China as missionaries, diplomats and journalists from 1890 to the present; photographing Chou En Lai, and the discovery of Emperor Qin’s Terra Cotta Army, covering China’s Cultural Revolution in 1966 and her experience in Tibet in 1979.
Topping has reported from Indochina, the Soviet Union, Mongolia, South Africa, Australia, Pakistan, Bhutan, China, and Vietnam.
She has written for television documentaries productions for PBS, and is also the author of seven books, including Dawn Wakes in the East [Harper & Row, 1972]; The Splendors of Tibet [Sino, 1982]; and Charlie’s World: the Improbable Adventures of a Hong Kong Cockatoo and His American Family [Times, 1999].
Her most recent book, China Mission: a personal history from the Last Imperial Dynasty to the People’s Republic [LSU Press, 2013], won the Prose Award for Media and Culture in 2014.
Part One:
Part Two: