Hong Kong Legend and Story Teller
(Buy An Eastern Saga on Amazon U.S./ Buy An Eastern Saga on Amazon U.K.)
Marvin Farkas gave up a career on Broadway to travel in search of adventure and excitement in the Far East. As a pioneering news correspondent/cameraman in Asia from the 1950s through the 2000s he covered wars in Vietnam and Cambodia and the Indo/Pakistani conflict. Marvin also worked on many of the biggest Asian-themed Hollywood films of the day including the iconic ‘Love Is a Many Spendored Thing’. Originally from the Bronx, Marvin is still a fixture at Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club.
‘Farkas is a natural teller of tales.’ South China Morning Post
‘Farkas has witnessed some of Asia’s biggest moments.’ Time Out.
Full of vivid stories and historic characters, this memoir of New York film-man Marvin Farkas’s life in Hong Kong of the 1950s and 1960s is a classic tale of a young man’s rite of passage, but also a first-hand account of some of the key events and personalities of a now lost era.
Arriving in Hong Kong in 1954 on the cargo ship Eastern Saga, former Broadway star Marvin took up lodgings at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club (FCC) as he started out building a career with only US$200 and the camera which he had taken from his father’s New York studio.
Beginning as a copy editor on Hong Kong paper the Tiger Standard, Marvin soon established himself as a budding news photographer, whose work took him all around Asia, from Singapore to Indonesia,, Malaysia, Indonesia and India, giving him a front line view of some of the momentous changes sweeping the region. Marvin also worked on many of the major Asia films of the day, including ‘The World of Suzie Wong,’ and with stars ranging from Orson Wells to Clark Cable.
Buy Marvin’s memoir An Eastern Saga here
Marvin Being Interviewed for a BBC TV documentary
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Interviewed by BBC – part 2
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As Hong Kong was Marvin’s base, the book is full of delightful descriptions of Hong Kong of the 1950s and early 1960s, and beautifully captures the city of that day. Marvin describes everything from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, to the dives of Wan Chai, from the high life on the Peak, to opium dens in the Walled City, and from Chinese refugees from the mainland, to days at the beach.
Eastern Saga also covers Marvin’s experiences of events in the wider region, ranging from the expulsion of the Dutch from Indonesia, to Malaysian independence and the early years of the Vietnam war, and his meetings with key figures including Zhou Enlai, Sukarno, Ali Bhutto, and legendary director Satyajit Ray. Above all though, this is a charming account of a fascinating and now vanished era.
An Eastern Saga Reviewed by South China Morning Post
Veteran news cameraman Marvin Farkas is somewhat of a legend in Hong Kong, where he first arrived in its harbour on April 16, 1954. The then 27-year-old was one of just four civilian passengers on the Eastern Saga. This cargo ship was the beginning of the author’s life in Hong Kong and its rather poetic name lends itself fittingly to the title of his memoir. Read more
Marvin Farkas is sitting in Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC), where a discreet waiter serves us steaming cups of coffee. Outside, it is a blistering hot day, with blue skies and a yellow sun beating down on the overcrowded, thronging island. Inside the bar, among the polished wood and low murmur of crisp foreign accents, it is deliciously cool as Farkas, an 83-year-old former news cameraman, recounts his life to me. From meeting Asia’s leading politicians to scouring Hong Kong’s opium dens, he skims through his new memoir, An Eastern Saga, with relish. But, like any good story, we should start at the beginning. Read more.
Marvin talking about Hong Kong riots in 1967
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And The Band Played On.” A reading from An Eastern Saga during a launch event at the Hong Kong FCC
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