Author: If neighbours build cellar, I can’t write
‘Enough to get the street drunk’
SOME 20 million readers snapped up copies of her autobiographical epic Wild Swans.
But fans of the 1991 publishing phenomenon may have to wait a little longer for the latest book by acclaimed author Jung Chang. For the best-selling writer says she will struggle to concentrate on her new book if her neighbours build a £30,000 wine cellar for 1,000 bottles.
She hit out at the couple next door – Commerzbank employee Chadi Semaan and his wife Amelie, an executive director at JP Morgan – saying their ‘desire to store large amounts of alcohol’ could not justify the ‘misery’ caused to others.
In a strongly-worded objec- tion to the plans for the 2.8m deep spiral chamber, the 65year-old claimed it presented a ‘new and further threat’ to the stability of her property in London’s affluent Notting Hill.
She told town hall planners she and her husband, historian and author Jon Halliday, had already been hit by continuous building work as the neighbours have been granted extensive planning permission at their £6million house.
Mr Halliday said the need for a cellar to ‘hold enough wine to get the whole street drunk many times over’ was disproportionate to the disruption on his home.
Miss Chang warned that the building work would jeopardise her new book, which focuses on Sun Yat-sen, the ‘father’ of modern China.
But planners said the scheme was not a basement development and have recommended it for approval.