Fiona Lindsay Shen was born in Wales, UK, and has lived in Scotland, the United States, and mainland China. She is the author of two books exploring the cultural histories of natural phenomena: Pearl: Nature's Perfect Gem (Reaktion Books, 2022) and Silver: Nature and Culture (Reaktion Books, 2017). These have appeared in Japanese and Mandarin translations. She is the biographer of an early female translator of classical Chinese poetry: Knowledge is Pleasure: Florence Ayscough in Shanghai (Hong Kong University Press, 2012). Her current interests are in our sensory experience of the world, and she is completing an olfactory memoir about raising her children in Shanghai. She holds a PhD in Art History from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University, California. She has written for Orion magazine, the Washington Post, China Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as many art and design publications.
