Ten years ago, when Michelle Garnaut visited Shanghai as a guest chef for the Peace Hotel, she was dismayed to find a set of curtains blocking the view of the city's most famous landmark, the Bund.

 

These curtains, it seemed, had always been in place. No one had thought to take them down.

 

But one day Garnaut decided to literally pull these curtains out of the way. At last, there was the view that everyone had been waiting for: The flowing Huangpu River below, the futuristic Pudong skyline ahead. And all who now came to dine at the Peace Hotel were pleased by what they saw.

 

Epiphanies like these never happen that simply, for life is seldom so neat, but in that one simple act Garnaut seemed to have expressed her intentions for Shanghai for the next decade. 

 

Today, of course, she has her own view, at M on the Bund, one of the most popular and respected high-end restaurants in the city. But Garnaut is hardly the kind of women to sit back and soak up the scenery.

 

For the next two weeks, M on the Bund will be a hive of activity, as it hosts its 4th annual Shanghai Literary Festival. 37 authors, including some very big names from 11 countries, will pass through her doors, lectures and talks will be held at M's sister club, The Glamour Bar.

 

Gore Vidal is here, as is Amy Tan, as well as Kiran Desai, the Booker Prize Winner for 2006, and culinary expert Madhur Jaffrey. There's even a rumor that legendary Italian author Umberto Eco is mulling about in the crowds.

 

Speaking about the changing face of Shanghai, Vidal said that he had seen first-hand the impact of China's growth. "After the cultural revolution there's been a huge burst of energy, which is quite visible just looking at the city (Shanghai) here. Looking at the new buildings down there (on the Bund), you feel volatile, you feel life," Vidal said.

 

"That really is the human inclination: It's focused towards 'more light, more light'."

 

But how did Garnaut wind-up in a position to entice people like Gore Vidal to Shanghai?

 

The answer lies in Garnaut's curious mixture of gut instinct and hands-on willpower.

 

"I first came to Shanghai in 1985, for fun, for a holiday," the Melbourne-born owner explains. "And I kept coming back every year because it was such an incredible place to be, always changing, always growing."

 

At the time Garnaut was already the boss of a highly successful restaurant in Hong Kong, M on the Fringe. But after the 1997 Hong Kong handover, she faced a difficult decision. "Everybody was heading West, going to Europe or Australia," she remembers. "Whereas I thought, wouldn't it be fun to go East?"

 

Garnaut completed her stint at the Peace Hotel, a stint that was not without its headaches, then began looking around for a place to open her own restaurant.

 

"People told me to find a cheap spot in Pudong, to sell food for 20 yuan (US$2.5), to stay away from the Bund, to stick to pizzas and hamburgers. But I never came to Shanghai to make hamburgers," she said.

 

"At that time, there was still nowhere in the city where you could get a world-class meal in a decent restaurant, not even in the hotels." And the more Garnaut explored The Bund, and the more her instinct gathered pace.

 

She committed herself to Shanghai's famous waterway and two years later, M on the Bund opened its doors. "As soon as we opened, we were famous," says Garnaut. "I'm not being arrogant, I'm just stating a fact. We were totally booked. We had 100 people a night, we had the business community, the socialites, the local press, the international press. Everyone wanted in. It wasn't just a fluke or blind luck. We had done our research."

 

At the time, Garnaut simply wanted to run a successful business. And her restaurant might have stayed that way if had not been for a nagging suspicion, around 2004, that something was missing.

 

"After we became successful it became, I don't know, like we no longer belonged in the community. We had lost something through our success, through our popularity, through our great location. I knew we had to become relevant again. We had to put something back. But what?"

 

The answer had been staring her in the face: To utilize the extra space in her restaurant as a venue for music, literary readings, fringe theater, and comedy routines.

 

"It cost a lot of money, but it was never about making money," she states.

 

"We had dates where people could gather to listen to music or watch plays. We had very humble roots. It was cosy and chatty. You could get six martinis and a show for 50 yuan! That's not how to run a business! But it was fantastic because we had a built-in audience from the restaurant, and it became enormously popular very quickly."

 

Those days of loose get-togethers and stimulating chitchat (M on the Bund even hosted a Bloomsday event in 2004 to mark the centenary of James Joyce's fabled day in Ulysses) are now long gone, but the spirit of Garnaut's original concept still remains.

 

"The literary festival this year is by far the biggest and best we have done. We have Gore Vidal, and Gore Vidal does not do literary festivals outside of New York. That's a real coup. It's fantastic, and I'm very happy, but let's not pretend there hasn't been an enormous amount of anguish and hard work. This animal costs a fortune, we have a tiny team of five people running everything, we are up to our eyes in inquiries, and the interest has been like avalanche."

 

But what kind of animal is the Shanghai Literary Festival? One can define what it is by defining what it is not.

 

To begin with, it is not a sponsored exercise like the Hong Kong Man Literary Festival. There are no big corporate big-hitters in town. Secondly, it is not a public service. Garnaut concedes that the festival is no longer about free sandwiches and pleasing everybody. Thirdly, it is not, nor will it ever become, a commercial enterprise for the city.

 

"If anyone founded the festival, I founded it. I put in the work. It was not just a flimsy idea, or knowing a few writers. It was about planning, financing, and making it happen.

 

"There is constant chatter about growing the festival, about expanding to other venues, about making everything larger in scope. But why? Stability is the key. If we went commercial it would become a full-time job. I already have a full-time job. And if we did expand the festival I think it would be a disaster, for many reasons which I can't go into now because I have to go."

 

And off Michelle Garnaut goes, dealing with inquiries, bookings, tables, times, authors, press, and all the other logistics behind the kind of festival intriguing enough to lure someone like Gore Vidal.

 

(China Daily March 14, 2007)