Nieman News

truestories_chineseThe popular narrative writers’ guide Telling True Stories has been translated into Chinese to serve the growing number of Chinese journalists practicing longform narrative storytelling. Announcing the news, Nieman curator Ann Marie Lipinski said, “The translation was a response to some of our Chinese Nieman Fellows who told us they and their colleagues would value a tool like this. I hope the book proves as useful among Chinese journalists as it has to others for almost a decade.” 

First published in 2007, “Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University” is a compilation of the advice shared by some of narrative journalism’s most gifted writers during past Nieman Conferences on Narrative Journalism. 

The Chinese translation of the book is available from Caixin Media Company. The introduction was written by Guo Qingguang, executive director of Renmin University’s School of Journalism.  

The books covers topics ranging from structuring narrative stories to writing and selling your first book. More than 50 prominent journalists and nonfiction authors offer their most powerful tips, including:  

  • Tom Wolfe on the emotional core of the story
  • Gay Talese on writing about private lives
  • Malcolm Gladwell on the limits of profiles
  • Nora Ephron on narrative writing and screenwriters
  • Alma Guillermoprieto on telling the story and telling the truth
  • Dozens of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists from the Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and more
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