Nicole Mones is the author of the award-winning novels THE LAST CHINESE CHEF, LOST IN TRANSLATION and A CUP OF LIGHT, which are in print in more than twenty languages. She started a textile business in China at the end of the Cultural Revolution and ran it for eighteen years, and she brings to her fiction writing an in-depth understanding of China and its culture. Her nonfiction writing on China has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Gourmet and the Washington Post. She is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. She lives in Portland, Oregon. www.nicolemones.com