Author Q&A: David Leffman

Author/ Bookish Everybody
6 September 2026

David Leffman has led the kind of career that most of us feel some degree of envy towards. A photography graduate, he became a travel guidebook writer, working for Rough Guides for 30 years and travelling to Australia, China, Indonesia, Iceland and Hong Kong for work.

How did you become a writer?

A combination of timing, luck, naivety and bloody-mindedness. It was during the late eighties at the start of a decade-long travel boom, and I sent an outline for a guide to Australia to around 30 publishers. It was rejected by all of them but, being young and enthusiastic, I saw rejections as part of the process.

One of the publishers was Rough Guides. I really wanted to work for them so the next time I was in London I turned up unannounced at their headquarters, handed over my latest version and said I’d be back in a couple of weeks. They gave me the job just to shut me up. I worked for them for 30 years, authoring guides to Australia, China, Indonesia, Iceland and Hong Kong.

What would you be doing otherwise?

I was accepted for a degree in Zoology at the University of Leeds, switched to a degree in Photography at the London College of Printing, then became a guidebook writer. I’d probably revert to zoology.

Of the characters you have created, which is your favourite and why?

William Mesny, a 19th-century British adventurer in China who served as a general in the Chinese military. He led an exciting life and while researching his biography – “The Mercenary Mandarin” – it was hard not to feel jealous at times. Another is Jiang Zonghan, an ethnic Yi born into slavery, who rose to become the military governor of Guizhou province. He had a romantic start, eloping as a youth with his master’s daughter and fleeing to an unbridged gorge on the upper Yangzi river. The boatman refused to carry them across so they had to swim, and Jiang Zonghan vowed to build a bridge and put the boatman out of business. He did it too – the bridge is still standing near Lijiang in Yunnan.

(www.davidleffman.com/blog-1-1/the-lijiang-poltergeist)

How did you come to be in this part of the world and to start writing?

I first visited China in 1985, drawn by martial arts, woodblock printing, food and general curiosity – the country had only opened up to independent tourism in 1983. Since then I’ve clocked up around six years in China, mostly as a guidebook writer.

Tell us about your writing method. Is there a secret?

No secret. I just write for eight hours a day. Covering large countries teaches you to focus text: Rough Guide to China was, say, 1,000 pages long, but you could write that much on some villages. So you learn to say what needs to be said, then move on.

Which author, alive or dead, would you most like to meet?

None. They have chosen to be known through their writing and I don’t want to find that they’re a narrow-minded, egotistical bigot in person. Although I would like to have bought Laurence Sterne a drink for Tristram Shandy.

Tell us about your favourite bookshop in the world.

Daisy Lane Books in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. An old-fashioned second-hand place stuffed to its low rafters with musty piles of books. Plus they have a cat.

What advice would you give your younger, writer self?

Nothing. I’ve been fortunate enough to have thoroughly enjoyed my career.

A Murder in Yunnan: The Unsolved Killing of a British Diplomat on China’s Southwestern Frontier (2026); Paper Horses: Traditional Woodblock Prints of Gods from Northern China (2022); and The Mercenary Mandarin: How a British adventurer became a general in Qing-dynasty China (2016) can all be ordered direct from the Hong Kong publisher, Blacksmith Books or branches of Bookazine.

About the Author

Bookish Everybody

Books and reading are too often on the periphery. Enter: Bookish Everybody, a one-stop community of book enthusiasts to read or write reviews, join read-alongs, buy/sell/give books and join our competitions to win books: www.bookisheverybody.com.