When Peter Hessler went to China in the late 1990s, he expected to spend a couple of peaceful years teaching English in the town of Fuling on the Yangtze River. But what he experienced - the natural beauty, cultural tension, and complex process of understanding that takes place when one is thrust into a radically different society - surpassed anything he could have imagined. Hessler observes firsthand how major events such as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the controversial consturction of the Three Gorges Dam have affected even the people of a remote town like Fuling.

Poignant, thoughtful and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a place caught mid-river in time, much like China itself - a country seeking to understand both what it was and what it will one day become.

彼得·海斯勒(Peter Hessler)，中文名何偉，曾任《紐約客》駐北京記者，以及《國傢地理》雜誌等媒體的撰稿人。

他成長於美國密蘇裏州的哥倫比亞市，在普林斯頓主修英文和寫作，並取得牛津大學英語文學碩士學位。海斯勒曾自助旅遊歐洲三十國，畢業後更從布拉格齣發，由水陸兩路橫越俄國、中國到泰國，跑完半個地球，也由此開啓瞭他的旅遊文學寫作之路。

海斯勒散見於各大雜誌的旅遊文學作品，數度獲得美國最佳旅遊寫作奬。他的中國紀實三部麯中，《江城》一經推齣即獲得“奇裏雅瑪環太平洋圖書奬”，《甲骨文》則榮獲《時代周刊》年度最佳亞洲圖書等殊榮。海斯勒本人亦被《華爾街日報》贊為“關注現代中國的最具思想性的西方作傢之一”。