| Peter Stursberg | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 31, 1913 Chefoo, China |
| Awards | Order of Canada |
Peter Stursberg, CM (born August 31, 1913) is a Canadian writer and broadcaster.
Born in Chefoo, China, he has spent his career as a foreign correspondent, newspaper editor, television newscaster and commentator, and author. He was recognised as one of the best Canadian correspondents of the Second World War, reporting for CBC Radio from the front lines in Italy and France.
In 1996, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada for having "helped Canadians to be better informed about themselves and their place in the world".[1] Stursberg's latest book, No Foreign Bones in China (2002), details his family's complex relationship with his country of birth:
"Stursberg recreated the story of his family in China for No Foreign Bones in China, recalling the turbulent birth of modern China through the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, two world wars and the rise of Mao. It traces the fortunes of Captain Samuel Lewis Shaw, a merchant seaman, who arrived in China in the 1830s. He settled in Foochow and married a Japanese woman, Peter Stursberg's grandmother, to whom the book is dedicated. The Shaw children grew up in Pagoda Anchorage, the heart of the Chinese tea trade. The title refers to the fury of the Chinese over the Korean War. They expelled all foreigners and even dug up their bones, including the bones of Stursberg's grandfather and grandmother." [2] Through his ancestors, Captain Shaw and his Japanese wife, Stursberg is related to former British Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith.[3]