Robert Elegant

Robert Elegant was an American-British journalist, historian and novelist whose long experience in Asia shaped both his nonfiction and his historical fiction. Born in New York in 1928, he studied Far Eastern affairs and journalism, learned Chinese and Japanese, and worked as a foreign correspondent covering China, Korea, Vietnam and other Asian conflicts. He became a prominent interpreter of Chinese and East Asian politics, wrote widely for newspapers and magazines, and advised senior American political figures, including Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Elegant died in London in 2023.

Elegant’s historical novels are especially valuable for readers interested in imperial and modern China. His Imperial China trilogy—Dynasty, Manchu and Mandarin—moves from the rise of the Qing dynasty through nineteenth-century foreign intervention, the Taiping Rebellion and the growing crisis of imperial rule. Other novels include White Sun, Red Star, concerned with revolutionary China; The Everlasting Sorrow and Last Year in Hong Kong, which continue his exploration of Chinese and colonial society; and Cry Peace, set during the Korean War. His fiction combines large political transformations with merchants, soldiers, diplomats and families whose lives are disrupted by war, trade and dynastic change.