author
Hugh Leigh Norris
Best known for Rice Papers, this little-known early 20th-century writer drew on time spent in China to shape a set of short stories meant to show Chinese life in a more human, varied way than the stereotypes common in his era.
1 Audiobook
Rice Papers
by Hugh Leigh Norris
About the author
Very little biographical information about Hugh Leigh Norris is easy to confirm today, but he is clearly associated with Rice Papers, first published in 1905 and now preserved by Project Gutenberg and library catalogs.
The book is a collection of stories connected to China, and its presentation notes that the tales were inspired by the author's three years of service there. That background gives the work much of its interest: it aims not just to entertain, but also to push back against the flat, cartoonish images of Chinese people that many English-language readers would have encountered at the time.
Because reliable modern sources on Norris are sparse, much of his life remains obscure. What does survive suggests an author remembered chiefly through this one distinctive book, which still offers listeners a glimpse of cross-cultural storytelling from the early 1900s.