Growing up in York, Liam’s first twenty years were spent a world away from the wonderful chaos of China. In the late 1980s he embarked on a degree in Mandarin and Classical Chinese at Oxford, graduating from there to study ancient Chinese history amongst the cherry blossoms of Fudan University in Shanghai.

After spells with the top-end tour operator Voyages Jules Verne and with BBC Haymarket in London, at the age of 30 he swapped his briefcase for a rucksack and became a traveller and writer.

In 2006, just days before a three-month trip to investigate the Grand Canal of China, Liam married Rebecca, his supremely understanding and indulgent girlfriend of ten years. They live in the picturesque old town of Kenilworth, Warwickshire, in the heart of England.

Green Dragon, Sombre Warrior

Liam D’Arcy Brown’s 10,000-mile journey across China uncovers aspects of China that the wider world seldom glimpses. He discovers that despite the astonishing contrasts of her physical and social geography, the variety of her peoples and the tangled web of her many histories and possible destinies, some constants remain. But most fascinating of all were the many conversations Liam had with ordinary Chinese people of diverse cultures and races within a seemingly homogeneous People’s Republic. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the one of the world’s emerging Super Powers, and the people behind it.

The Emperor’s River

In his second book, Liam D’Arcy-Brown sets out to be the first Westerner in modern times to travel the length of China’s great wonder, the Grand Canal. Attempting to remember the China that fascinated him as a child, Liam is faced with a modern, more open China now. He barters his way onto the enormous barges that carry bulk building materials for China’s rapid modernisation, follows the world’s longest man-made canal and accounts for a list of characters and historical but forgotten sites from China’s ancient past. The Emperor’s River provides a captivating insight into a side of China that is rarely seen.