CHINESE director Lu Chuan is set to take the directorial reins of Peter Hessler’s award-winning book “River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze,” Creative Artists Agency (CAA) confirmed Tuesday.

    Jamie Gordon and Courtney Potts of Fugitive Films are producing.

    A New York Times best seller, “River Town” documents Hessler’s experiences as a teacher in Fuling, Sichuan Province in 1996 and 1998. The book is regarded as a must-read for those that want to truly get to know China.

    Hessler was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2011 in addition to being a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker. His other books include “Oracle Bones,” “Country Driving” and “Strange Stones.”

    The 45-year-old director Lu has gained recognition with art films such as “The Missing Gun” (2002) and “Kekexili: Mountain Patrol” (2004).

    Fugitive Films, the producer for “River Town,” explained that they chose Lu for the film not only because of the recognition the Chinese director won in the U.S. film industry with his works, but also due to Hessler’s admiration for the director.

    The author watched Lu’s films while in China and feels the director shares his views on what he calls cross-nation humanity.

    “River Town” will be a return to art films for Lu, who has recently turned to commercial works such as “The Last Supper” (2012) and “Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe” (2015).

    CAA also confirmed that “Born in China,” a film Lu worked on with Disney over the past two and half years, will be released this year and that the sequel to “Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe” will begin shooting later this year.

    Development financing for “River Town” was provided by Dragon Summit Culture in association with IBP and Crystal City Entertainment. Zhao Jin, Cleo Lee and Jonathan Rubenstein serve as co-executive producers on the project.(SD-Agencies)

    About ‘River Town’

    “RIVER Town: Two Years on the Yangtze” is an unforgettable portrait of a city that, much like China itself, is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

    In the heart of Sichuan Province lies the small city of Fuling. Surrounded by the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, Fuling has long been a place of continuity, far from the bustling big cities of Beijing and Shanghai. But now Fuling is heading down a new path, and gradually, along with scores of other towns in this vast and ever-evolving country, it is becoming a place of change and vitality, tension and reform, disruption and growth. As the people of Fuling hold on to the China they know, they are also opening up and struggling to adapt to a world in which their fate is uncertain.

    Fuling’s position at the crossroads came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. He found himself teaching English and American literature at the local college, discovering how Shakespeare and other classics look when seen through the eyes of students who have been raised in the Sichuan countryside. His students, though, are the ones who taught him about the ways of Fuling — and about the complex process of understanding that takes place when one is immersed in a radically different society.

    As he learns the language and comes to know the people, Hessler begins to see that it is indeed a unique moment for Fuling. In its past is China’s troubled history — the struggles of land reform, the decades of misguided economic policies, and the unthinkable damage of the Cultural Revolution — and in the future is the Three Gorges Dam, which upon completion will partly flood the city and force the resettlement of more than a million people. Making his way in the city and traveling by boat and train throughout Sichuan Province and beyond, Hessler offers vivid descriptions of the people he meets, from priests to prostitutes and peasants to professors, and gives voice to their views. This is both an intimate personal story of his life in Fuling and a colorful, beautifully written account of the surrounding landscape and its history.(SD-Agencies)

    About Peter Hessler

    Peter Hessler, born in the United States in 1969, is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he served as Beijing correspondent from 2000-2007, and is also a contributing writer for National Geographic. He is the author of “River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze,” which won the Kiriyama Book Prize, and “Oracle Bones,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He won the 2008 National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting.(SD-Agencies)