To coincide with World Book Day on 23rd April it was possible to organise a small event for twenty people at the Bugs Bookshop in Nanjing where Zhu Yingchun spoke to an audience of all ages. In his talk he reminisced about his fascination with the natural world as a young boy – be it following an ant as it moved a single seed, only to find a whole army of ants, or spying on a praying mantis, poised for battle. This sense of curiosity, which is sadly lost upon many of us as we grow older, remains a key source of inspiration for Zhu Yingchun’s work and the numerous books he has made that explore the obvious, yet all too often ignored, intricacies of the insect world.
