Austin Coates

Austin Coates (1922-97), a former senior British civil servant in Hong Kong, Malaya, and Sarawak, left government service soon after completing this novel to pursue a professional writing career. Widely regarded as the most distinguished English-language author in Hong Kong, Coates remained a long-time Hong Kong resident, later dividing his time between Hong Kong and Portugal, where he died. Among his other books are The City of Broken Promises--a novel of eighteenth-century Macao--and two...See more

Austin Coates (1922-97), a former senior British civil servant in Hong Kong, Malaya, and Sarawak, left government service soon after completing this novel to pursue a professional writing career. Widely regarded as the most distinguished English-language author in Hong Kong, Coates remained a long-time Hong Kong resident, later dividing his time between Hong Kong and Portugal, where he died. Among his other books are The City of Broken Promises--a novel of eighteenth-century Macao--and two histories A Macao Narrative and Macau and the British. All three books are also available in the Echoes series from Hong Kong University Press. See less