Da Chen to be Featured at AJC Decatur Book Festival

Da Chen, author of the New York Times bestseller, Colors of the Mountain, will appear at the 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival––presented by DeKalb Medical. The festival will be held August 31 to September 2, 2007.

Daren Wang, Executive Director of the AJC-DBF is excited to have Chen as one of the festival’s many world-class authors. “Da Chen is a great addition to our diverse list of authors,” he said.

Chen, novelist, memoirist, and children’s book author and speaker, grew up in a small Fujian village in the deep south of China. Following his impoverished childhood and a threat of imprisonment at the age of nine, Chen attended college at Beijing Languages and Culture University where he graduated top of his class and remained for some years working as an English professor. At 23, Chen came to the United States and attended Columbia University School of Law on a full scholarship, and upon graduating, worked as an investment banker for the wall street firm, Rothschilds, Inc.

Chen’s first memoir, New York Times bestseller, Colors of the Mountain, was a New England Bookseller Association Discovery selection, a BookSense ’76 selection, a Borders Original Voice selection, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and a New York Public Library book for the Teen Age List for 2001 and 2002.

The children’s adaptation of his memoir, China’s Son, was a Borders 2002 Original Voices Award finalist, American Library Association 2002 Best Books for Young Adults final nominee, New York Public Library Book for the 2002 Teen Age List, and PBS TeacherSource recommended book.

Da Chen’s books are used as textbooks in Yale, Vassar, Wellesley, and high schools and middle schools throughout the country.

The schedule for the Decatur Book Festival will be released in mid-August on the festival’s website.

The 2007 AJC-DBF will be held Labor Day weekend in the downtown Decatur Square. The festival will feature 200 world-class authors, keynote addresses by Charles Frazier, best-selling author of Cold Mountain, and Kinky Friedman, American singer-songwriter, novelist, humorist, and politician, a children’s stage along with children’s activities, live music and poetry, and cooking demonstrations led by celebrity chefs.