Catherine Sampson started her career in the BBC and has worked as Beijing correspondent for The Times. She now lives in Beijing with her husband and three children. Out of Mind is Catherine’s second novel, following her remarkable debut, Falling Off Air.
'I grew up in London, Alsace in France, Plymouth and Coventry. I applied to study Chinese at university largely because very few people did so back then. In 1980, during my interview at Leeds University, I remember one of the lecturers telling me it was hardly a golden period in Chinese history, and that I shouldn’t expect to get a job with a degree in Chinese studies. He was right, of course. It would take years for China to emerge from the grim sixties and seventies to become the economic force that it is now. After studying Chinese at Leeds I was given a scholarship to go to Harvard University for a year, where I studied more about China. When I returned to England I joined the BBC world service and became a journalist (any resemblance to the Corporation where Robin works is, of course, purely coincidental). I have been back and forth to China since I was 19, first as a student in Shanghai, then as an English teacher in the subtropical coastal province of Fujian, then based in Beijing as the China correspondent for The Times.'
Author's Website: https://catherinesampson.com/
