Julia Lovell is Professor of Modern China at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Her two most recent books are The Great Wall and The Opium War (which won the 2012 Jan Michalski Prize). Her many translations of modern Chinese fiction into English include Lu Xun's The Real Story of Ah Q, and other Tales of China (2009). She is currently completing a new translation of Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en.
She writes about China for several newspapers, including the Guardian, Financial Times, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.