July - September 2025: The People Write: Authors from the People’s Republic of China

All flags represent their nation. That symbolism will be seen in its writing.
Here the red background represents revolution.
The 4 smaller stars stand for the 4 classes of society, as defined by Chairman Mao:
-the workers
-the peasants
-the urban petite bourgeoisie
-the national bourgeoisie
The large star represents the Chinese Communist Party uniting all.

“It’s nobody’s fault… Everything is determined by fate and there’s no way anyone can escape it”
Mo Yan in Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Welcome to the world of fiction from the People’s Republic of China. It’s been a country since October 1, 1949, just over 75 years, but what a literature it has produced. Such a vast and varied country with such a tumultuous history allows for a variety of themes and schools of writing in its literature.

This means, if fiction from the People’s Republic is new to you, you’re sure to find a book or an author in your favourite genre. If you’ve read some before, there is definitely lots more to go.

Although relatively brief so far, the history of the PRC has had several epochs, each giving rise to its own concerns.

The White Haired Girl - ballet image from the New York Times

Chairman Mao was the first leader (1949 - 1976). He believed that the role of literature was to serve politics, and so it should reflect the proletarian nature of the republic. The early years were filled with ideological struggles and land reform, along with the devastating famine. Campaigns such as the Hundred Flowers, the anti-rightist movement, and the Great Leap Forward, along with the devastating Great Famine, created constant upheaval. Poetry and play writing predominated in literature, as poems and plays were easily absorbed by the public, at a time when teaching literacy was a major concern. Mao himself published many poems during this time. The Cultural Revolution, (1966 - 1976) saw publishing highly censored and controlled by the state, while many authors suffered at the hands of the state.

Mao’s death in 1976 and the fall of the Gang of Four, made it easier to publish. During the 1980s and ‘90s “Scar literature” flourished; a genre in which the evils of the previous years featured as themes. Starvation, re-education, rural life, collectivization: all were grist for the mill. This doesn’t mean the books themselves were as bleak as the situations they portrayed, for Chinese writers of this era were masters of satire and irony, while criticizing the state. There was a certain earthiness to much of the writing that obviated despair. Many of these writers had been born in the 1940s and 1950s, and had experienced first hand much of the turbulence.

Contemporary Chinese authors born after 1976 grew up in a very different world than their predecessors. Deng Xiaoping, leader of the PRC from 1978 to 1989, turned the country’s ideology on its head saying “To get rich is glorious”. Suddenly a state economy turned into a free for all, and speculation fuelled by dreams of unlimited wealth followed. At the same time, China, now committed to development, was opening up to the West. New ideas and ways came streaming in. This too was reflected in the writing, again, often satirically.

AP photo by Jeff Widener

The Tiananmen Square protests and massacre reset Chinese political thinking once more. Criticism became more pointed. Repression of writers was widespread. The tainted blood scandal of the early 1990s and the growing inequalities in everyday life led to a re-examination of life. At the same time, western publishers became interested in writing from China, and many works were translated for publication outside China. It’s worth checking the original publication dates of translated novels, as many were written well before they were translated, so may appear to be more recent.

Today’s writers, those first published in the 21st century, have taken on dystopian themes, speculative fiction, and the environment. Theirs is a world where writing can be published on the internet, information can be found there, and new ideas cannot be controlled.

As you look through the authors below, only a couple of their respective works are mentioned in order to save space, but there is a lot more out there to discover.

The Predecessors

Fiction never arises out of the blue. Here are three writers from the early 20th century:

Lao She (Shu Qingchun) 1899 - 1966
Condemned as a counter revolutionary during the Cultural Revolution, Lao either committed suicide or was murdered.
His most famous novel Rickshaw Boy (Camel Xiangzi) 1936, is a first person narration of the life of a rickshaw driver, which set up a contrast with similar working class people in the PRC, a contrast which wasn’t always positive for the new regime.

Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren, Zhou Zhangshou) 1881 - 1936
Lu is considered one of the founding figures of modern Chinese literature, although his legacy and reputation are mixed.
Mao declared him China’s greatest writer in 1937, a year after his death. However, after 1949 Mao purged Lu’s closest disciples from the 1930s, and said that if Lu had still been alive, “he would either have gone silent or gone to prison”.
Despite that, his stories are used widely in the education system.
They can be found in The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun.
One of China’s most prestigious literary prizes is named after Lu.

Jin Yong born in Haining 1924 - 2018
A Hero Born series Legends of the Condor Heroes consists of 10 action novels taking place in historic times

“Everyone of us is a potential convict” - Ai Weiwei



Fountain of Light by Ai Weiwei (2007) from the Royal Academy of Arts website

Writers Who Lived Through It: 1

Bi Feiyu: born 1964 Xinghua
The Moon Opera, Three Sisters
- has won the Mao Dun Literary Prize, Le Monde Prize in Literature
has written film adaptations
Three Sisters won the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize

Can Xue (Deng Xiaohua): born in Changsha in 1953
pseudonym meaning “dirty snow”
has written books on Borges, Dante, and Shakespeare
- abstract writer using political allegory
Frontier - young woman’s new life in the wilderness, as contrast with urban life
Love in the New Millennium - long listed for 2019 International Booker - darkly comic novel of women in a world of constant surveillance
Mother River - 13 stories
Vertical Motions - stories

Chan Koon-chung: born in Shanghai 1952
The Fat Years 2009 is a dystopian novel examining the capitalist days:
Chinese society had collectively made a Faustian bargain, swapping wealth and stability for personal liberty. In the novel, an entire month appears to have been erased from official Chinese history, and hardly anyone in 2013 Beijing seems to be aware of the gap: but now that China’s economic clout can guarantee its citizens a comfortable living, why should they care? from Words without Borders Nov 1, 2012

Chen Ran: born in Beijing 1962
writes of female life in the PRC, including lesbian life, often allegorically
Private Life was the novel which first brought her to public attention

Fang Fang: born in Nanjing 1955
- winner of the Lu Xun Literary Prize 2010
Soft Burial - 2016 - part mystery, part historical fiction, part social exposé - a woman with amnesia starts recalling her past life in her new life - banned for its portrayal of the Land Reform Campaign in the early days of the PRC
Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City was her exposé of the lock down of Wuhan during the initial Covid outbreak

Gao Xingjian - born in Ganzhou in 1940
- winner of the Nobel prize for Literature in 2000 for “an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insight, and linguistic ingenuity”
- best known in the west for Soul Mountain (Chinese 1990 / English 2000)
- has lived in France since 1990 after being declared persona non grata for his criticism of the Tiananmen Massacre

Ge Fei: born in Dantu in 1964
- he was an early avant garde writer
Peach Blossom Paradise - novel of 1898’s Hundred Days’ Reform era - 2004
Jiangnan Trilogy won the Mao Dun Literary Award
The Invisibility Cloak won both the Lu Xun Literary Prize and the Lao She Literary Award

Geling Yan: born in Shanghai in 1958
- former PLA member and later journalist during the Sino-Vietnamese War
- now an American and a member of the Hollywood Writers’ Guild of America, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
-“one of China’s literary superstars” Barnes and Noble
The Secret Talker - woman’s life in PRC catches up with her new life in San Francisco - suspense

Ha Jin (Jin Xuefei): - born in Liaoning 1956
- joined the People’s Liberation Army at 13, during the Cultural Revolution
- studying in the US at the time of the Tiananmen Massacre, he decided not to return to the PRC, and stayed in the USA
- writes in English
- his earlier, shorter novels are masterpieces, however, Ha has also written longer novels, where he tends to get bogged down
Waiting 1999 won the PEN/Faulkner award
War Trash, a novel of the Korean War, won Ha a second PEN Faulkner award

Han Shaogong: born in Changsha in 1953
- sent for re-education during the Cultural Revolution
- avant garde writer
A Dictionary of Maqiao 1996 Chinese / 2003 English weaves words and little episodes into a novel set in rural China during the time of the Cultural Revolution

________
edited to correct touchstones

Writers Who Lived Through It : 2

Liu Cixin: born in Beijing in 1963
best known for The Three Body Problem trilogy
author of the first cyberpunk novel in Chinese China 2185 1989

Ma Jian: born in Qingdao 1953
the son of a labelled rightist he had to drop out of school during the Cultural Revolution
denounced for his painting in 1983, and again for his “bourgeois liberal” writing in 1987
took part in the democracy protests leading up to Tiananmen
a very dark writer
currently denied entry into the PRC, where his books are banned
Beijing Coma 2008 was the result of the protests and subsequent massacre winning the 2009 Index on Censorship award
The Dark Road 2013 examines China’s former one child policy and the pollution throughout the country

Mo Yan (Guan Moye): born in Gaomi 1955
name is a pseudonym meaning “Don’t speak”
- Nobel Prize winner 2012
- “ most revered, controversial, and feared Chinese novelist” today - Barnes and Noble
Frog - set in the days of China’s one child policy, the story of a midwife
Life and Death are Wearing Me Out - magical realism

Perhat Tursun: 1969 -
Uyghur author disappeared by state in 2018
The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiang - combines Uyghur literary traditions and Sufi poetics
winner of Swedish PEN Tucholsky Prize

Wang Xiaobo: born Beijing 1952, died 1997
considered to be an “educated youth” he was sent for reeducation on a collective farm in 1968
best known for his novel The Golden Age, a mocking and humourous look at life and sex (Chinese 1992 / English 2023) (touchstone is incorrect)

Xinran: born in Beijing 1958
- former radio host in the PRC, now living in London
The Good Women of China is a collection of interviews from that time
Sky Burial -2004 tells of a woman’s search for lost husband in Tibet

Yan Lianke: - born in Song County, Lluoyang 1958
- prolific writer and frequently censored satirist, literary critic
The Day the Sun Died - winner of the. Dream of the Red Chamber Award
- dream walkers one night in a village act out things they have suppressed during waking hours
Dream of Ding Village - 2006 novel of China’s blood selling scandal
The Four Books - 2011 satire on the Great Leap Forward and reeducation camps

Yang Hongying: born in Chengdu in 1962
- a writer of children’s literature, over 20 million copies of her works have been sold

Yu Hua: born in 1960 Hangzhou
writing has kept pace with current topics during his career, moving from the Cultural Revolution to today’s material society
writes about the PRC for the NYT
Among his better known books:
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
To Live
Brothers

______________

edited to correct touchstones

Manufacturing #18, Cancun Factory, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province 2005 photo by Edward Burtynsky, Robert Koch Gallery

Newer Writers

I’ve chosen a somewhat arbitrary starting date of birth here. Some of the older authors mentioned here (born in the late 1960s) would not have been known for their writing before Tiananmen. Many of the authors in the previous section overlap these writers.

An Yu: born in Beijing
The year doesn’t seem to be part of her biography.
- currently living in NYC and writes in English.
- among her LT tags is “weird fiction”.
Ghost Music - 2023
- “a gorgeous and atmospheric novel of art and expression”, “animates contemporary Beijing through the eyes of a lonely yet hopeful you woman” (Grove Atlantic)
Braised Pork - 2021
- the sudden death of her husband sends a young woman from her wealthy Beijing world into the other worlds of China, and into Tibet
Sunbirth - August 2025
- a surreal novel in which the sun is slowly disappearing

Chen Qiufan: - born in Shantou in 1981
- science fiction writer and scriptwriter
- first novel Waste Tide is an“eco-techno-thriller” about industrial waste and war - 2013

Dong Xi (Tian Dailin) born in Guli in 1966
Dong was the winner of first Lu Xun Literary Prize (1998) and a successful writer of screenplays.
- his work deals with ordinary people resisting power.
Sky Lovers was made into a film of the same name.

Shuang Xuetao: born Shenyang 1983
Rouge Street: Three Novellas - three tales of contemporary life in rust belt Shenyang in northeast China (English 2022).

Sheng Keyi
her novels question the official history
Northern Girls, about a migrant worker, was shortlisted for the Man Asia Literary Prize

Xu Zechen born in 1978
- his novels deal with the urban underclass

Yiyun Li born Beijing 1972
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers 2005 - stories from China and the Chinese American diaspora
Kinder than Solitude 2014 - did one of a trio of friends murder another friend when they were young?

Zhu Wen: born Fujian 1967
- a writer who feels Chinese literature needs a new turn. He has expressed the same sentiment in his role as a film director, criticising both Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige.
I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China

______________

edited for touchstones

Want More?

Some LT links:
Reading Globally October - December 2012 Theme Read: Asia II: https://www.librarything.com/topic/105514#unread

Read Mo Yan: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/13124/Read-Mo-Yan
- neither a large nor a long lived group, but there are good reviews of Mo’s work to be found here
feel free to update the threads by adding your own reviews

Prize Winners in their own Language: https://www.librarything.com/topic/344814#unread

Lots and Lots of Titles

21st Century Chinese Fiction: a list from Barnes and Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/books/chinese-fiction/21st-century-chinese-fict...

Fiction about China by outsiders (still RG eligible!):

Man’s Fate by André Malraux 1933 deals with the fall out of the failed 1927 Shanghai communist uprising

The Concert by Ismail Kadare
China and Albania had a long relationship under Mao and Hoxha
this is a political thriller about a concert in Beijing where a dying Zhou Enlai must make an appearance

Things to Think About While Reading

Way back in the 4th quarter of 2012, for the Reading Globally Asia II Theme Read, steventx posed these questions, which I’m reposting here in full:

1. What unique aspects of Chinese culture are apparent in the work you are reading--modes of expression, family and gender roles, religion? How do these cultural characteristics affect not only the story you are reading but the way it is told? Would a Western author have written the novel differently?

2. Few places in the world have been as dangerous as China during most of the 20th century: floods, earthquakes, famines, wars, civil wars, and political violence killed tens of millions. In what ways, if any, does your author find meaning in the life of the individual in the face of ever-present and arbitrary death?

3. Chinese writers work under the constant threat of censorship. In your reading did you sense that the author was tiptoeing around a sensitive issue or perhaps making his point in an indirect or allegorical fashion to avoid censorship?

4. Modern Chinese authors are well-versed in Western literature, and it's not unusual to find literary allusions to Shakespeare, Cervantes, etc. alongside references to the Chinese classics. What references did you find? How did they strike you? Did you get a sense that the author was writing with Western readers in mind?

These are just some questions that have come to mind in my own reading and looking at the reviews posted so far. You are more than welcome to post your own discussion questions.

A note on names:

Chinese names use the family name first, as in Smith John. Some western publishers use John Smith in translations, meaning you may have to search both ways for a particular author.

LT seems to follow the first name last name convention. Initially by putting the author's family name in the first name field, and first name in the family name field, the name would display correctly, but I notice that recently this no longer works in all cases in the "Your Books" display.

You can circumvent this problem by entering the author's name in the conventional Chinese form without a comma.

This is a quarter I'm excited about, but I also want to know:

What will you be reading?

If you've been reading Chinese fiction, how did you come to it?

Do you have a favourite Chinese author?

Do you have a books waiting on your TBR pile, or is this all new to you?

I ran across this topic by chance. I have read few Chinese authors but I would think that Anchee Min would be included. What caught my eye here was Camel Xiangzi "Rickshaw Boy" which I picked up recently and planned to read this year. My copy was printed by Foreign Language Press, Beijing, 1981

I did like Ha Jin's Waiting which I read in 2022.

>17 RBeffa: Hello and Welcome

Anchee Min would certainly be included. The list above is by no means meant to be definitive, just an encouragement to get others to join in with their suggestions. There's no way any listing could include everybody!

Camel Xiangzi is a real classic in my mind. I hope you get to read it, and add your thoughts about it here.

Waiting is another favourite of mine.

Granta 169: China (Autumn 2024) may be a good way to get introduced to some authors as well - there are some popular names such as Mo Yan, Yan Lianke and Yu Hua and a few that are less known (to me anyway). And from what I can see the vast majority (if not all) fit the theme timewise.

I also probably should pull out again the remaining Chinese books that I did not get to a few years ago when I did the Chinese Literature Harvard course at edx (will post links to my notes from that when I am a proper laptop - I don’t think it is available anymore as a course but the list of books fits here).

>19 AnnieMod: Missed that Granta, will have to look for it.

I remember when you were doing the Chinese Literature course and posting about it. It was really interesting.

Hope you find the list and post it.

What a wonderful introduction for us, Sassy. Thank you! Just to clarify: is there a preference in this challenge for fiction over nonfiction/memoirs?

Some possibilities from fiction books I already own:
finally finishing A Dictionary of Maqiao by Shaogong Han
Raise the red lantern : three novellas by Tong Su
Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin
Wolf totem by Rong Jiang

Some fiction books I would recommend:
War Trash by Ha Jin
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang

>21 labfs39: No preference at all. I was thinking of adding a few titles from my own books of nonfiction written by Chinese authors in this period. I'd be interested to see your suggestions too, suspecting some overlap there.

I have to finish A Dictionary of Maqiao too, but fear it is still in a box after my long ago move. I don't think I will ever get a house with eaves again - they don't allow for books or images>

You've got two of my all time favourites there in your fiction recommendations. I haven't read Half of Man is Woman, so might follow up with that based on the other two.

Have you seen the film adaptations of Raise the Red Lantern and Red Sorghum? They are both spectacular.

Here are some nonfiction suggestions by Chinese authors from my book list. Looking for more from other people.

Biography and History intertwined:
Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine who Launched Modern China by Chang Jung
- a bit of a stretch in the title, but well worth it for background history

Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary by Gao Wenqian
- a book I recommend to anyone who will listen
The Conspiracy and Murder of Mao's Heir by Yao Ming-Le - how did Lin Biao die?
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir by Ai Weiwei the story of his father's life and persecution and its effects on the author
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang - self explanatory title

Mao: naturally each of these authors has a particular bias
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang - considered by many to be the definitive biography
The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Zhisui Li - written by Mao's physician

Persecution:
A Cadre School of Life: Six Chapters by Yang Jiang
Prisoner of Mao by Bao Ruo-Wang (Jean Pasqualini)

Disaster:
Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958 - 1962 by Yang Jisheng

Then of course Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung by the Chairman himself

I'm glad we are including nonfiction works, as I have a lot on my TBR! First my recommendations

Highly recommended:
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Grass Soup by Zhang Xianliang

Also:
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei
Feather in the Storm : A Childhood Lost in Chaos by Emily Wu
In search of my homeland : a memoir of a Chinese labor camp by Er Tai Gao

Possible reads include the following (but perhaps not until I've finished Dikötter's Cultural Revolution)

From my shelves:
No tears for Mao : growing up in the Cultural Revolution by Niu-niu
Colors of the mountain by Da Chen
Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China by Zhang XinXin
The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Zhisui Li

From my wish list:
Leaden Wings by Jie Zhang (rec by Eliz_M)
Zhou Enlai : the last perfect revolutionary by Wenqian Gao (rec by SassyLassy)
The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth by Sun Shuyun
The Women of the Long March by Lily Xiao Hong Lee
Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962 by Yang Jisheng (rec by SassyLassy)
The corpse walker : real life stories, China from the bottom up by Liao Yiwu (rec by SassyLassy)
Big Sister, Red Sister, Little Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China by Jung Chang (rec by mabith)
No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison by Xu Hongci (rec by lilisin)
Bullets and Opium: Real-Life Stories of China After the Tiananmen Square Massacre by Yiwu Liao (rec by lilisin)
A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu (graphic novel) (rec by avatiakh)
A Gang of One by Fan Shen (rec by BLBera)
Red Azalea by Anchee Min (rec by RidgewayGirl)
Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng (rec by Dikotter)
Prison Diary by Hồ Chí Minh (rec by LolaWalser)
Kingdom of Characters by Jing Tsu (rec by rv1988)

>20 SassyLassy: The course (ChinaX Book Club: Five Authors, Five Books, Five Views of China) is here now: https://www.edx.org/learn/chinese-history/harvard-university-chinax-book-club-fi... (if you go for the free version, you have 5 weeks to complete and you do not get to do the writing parts but you get access to all discussions and interviews and so on so if you are interested in deeper exploration of these works (or any one of them), I really recommend it. However - do not listen to/watch these before you read the book in question - they are spoilery and assume you read the book. :)

The 5 books:
China in Ten Words by Yu Hua
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke
Waiting by Ha Jin (originally in English but there is a good reason for it to be one of the 5)
The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi

My reviews are in all of the 5 books. Recommended (all 5!) even if I have reservations for all of them - they are all worth reading.

Thanks for the great intro, @SassyLassy! There’s a lot for us to get our teeth into. And a topic where I’ve only barely scraped the surface. I’m going to have to dive in shortly… Nothing relevant on the TBR at the moment, so it could go any way.

>25 AnnieMod: That looks really tempting. Thanks for the information. I've read two of the books already, but they're both definitely worth a reread.

>26 thorold: Who knows - this quarter may send you down a whole new path! I think some of the books would definitely be good for that old "compare and contrast" with some of your East German reading, given the censorship and repression both groups of authors were experiencing.

>13 SassyLassy:
Just a note that none of the links that are supposed to lead to external sites are working. You've accidentally reposted this thread's URL for each.

How exciting, I didn't realize this was on the menu for this year's theme reads. Admittedly though I've had to drop myself from many themes as I'm such a mood reader and often I can't stick to one topic in a row enough to be able to participate as throughly as I'd like. Or else, the topic is of interest but not for right now. My explorations of China however has been a recent project and passion, so this falls at the right moment. To pursue this Chinese interest just made sense to me due to my following of everything Japanese. When you study Japan you ultimately fall onto studying China as the two countries are greatly intertwined.

Just a few days ago I just happened to have started Jung Chang's nonfiction Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister about the Soong sisters and their contribution to the beginning of New China due to their marriages to influential personas of the time. I have just finished the first third which follows the second sister, Ching-Ling's marriage to Sun Yat-sen. I'm actually surprised by what I have read as I always have pictured Sun as a grandiose, Obama-like personality, who was highly likable and respected. Instead I was introduced to a flimsy excuse of a man who abandoned his wife several times to pursue his ambitions which really was just the dream of being idolized as a person of influence because truly he was a man of pure mediocrity who, did he even accomplish anything, really? I'm actually quite confused by this portrayal of him that I will need to pursue other history books that focus on him, as I fill the gap between Japan's wars with China, and the Communist upheaval of China, two topics I'm more familiar with.

As for what I could read next, since I've been recently focusing on the 4 Chinese classics (although I put down Three Kingdoms when I was in a non-reading mood and need to pick it back up) I don't have too much right now that fits this topic's period.

I have only the following fiction titles to pull from my shelves currently and I'm not sure of the timeline some of these take place in so not sure as to their relevancy to the topic:
Lao She : Quatre générations sous un même toit (Four Generations Under One Roof)
Lao She : Mr Ma & Son
Lao She : Gens de Pékin
Dai Sijie : L’Évangile selon Yong Sheng
Yan Lianke : La Fuite du temps
Zijian Chi : A la cime des montagnes

Nonfiction titles remaining:
Annette Wieviorka : Mes années chinoises
Jung Chang : Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
- My last remaining Chang book although I would't read this so soon after having read the other.

Today I'm starting Women, Seated by Zhang Yueran and translated by Jeremy Tiang.

>28 lilisin: Thanks for mentioning that. It looks like I had the correct URLs, but I have changed the info to just show the links without any other notation. They now work for me, I hope they do for you.

>29 lilisin: I say any and all fit!

La Fuite du temps is a 1998 book by Yan Lianke

A la cime des montagnes is from 2005. Chi Zijian has won the Mao Dun Literary Prize for her 2008 Last Quarter of the Moon

Dai Sijie's L'évangile selon Yong Sheng looks to be the most recent 2019.

As for going back in time, Lao She is definitely worth it.

The Wieviorka looks interesting.

>32 SassyLassy:

Thanks for doing the legwork. :)
I think I'd probably read the Wieviorka since that's definitely on topic, and then either Lianke or She but I've realized the reason I haven't read any of the fiction works yet is that they are so long! Oops!

>33 lilisin: I've realized the reason I haven't read any of the fiction works yet is that they are so long!
After just reading your thread and seeing all the wonderful 19th century French works you've been reading, many Chinese novels would be a breeze!

Greetings! I just noticed this theme for July-September.

I read Soul Mountain just last month. I enjoyed it, though it was very slow in parts. My review is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/366991#8881838

I read Ai Weiwei's memoir, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, back in 2022. I enjoyed his stories about his early life more than the latter part of the memoir. My review is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/337929#7867641

I’ve now got Soul mountain cued up on the e-reader — I’ll see how I get on with it, but the first three pages and the introduction made a good impression…

I had a look back to see what I’ve read relevant to the theme in the last few years. Most things were already covered by @SassyLassy above — in fact I may well have read most of them on her recommendation.

— Golden age by Wang Xiaobo — read 2024 “Hiding behind all the sexual high-jinks is a perfectly serious novel about ordinary people coping with political catastrophe. Fascinating, and very entertaining, if a little gruesome at times.”

— Red sorghum by Mo Yan — read 2023 “Mo Yan plays with the timeline to force us to read this as a novel about individual people, not abstract historical events, and there's a lot of local colour — most of it red and cereal-based — grim wit, and human resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.”

— Volver la vista atras (Retrospective) by Juan Gabriel Vásquez — read 2022: this is a bit of a wildcard for the theme, a biographical novel about the Colombian film director Sergio Cabrera, whose communist parents sent him to school in Beijing, where he got caught up as a young teenager in the Cultural Revolution. Interestingly different perspective.

— Love in a fallen city by Eileen Chang; La joueuse de go by Shan Sa; The good women of China: hidden voices by Xinran — read 2015, all covered above

>36 thorold: Oh, great. I'm extremely interested to learn how well you like Soul Mountain.

>35 rocketjk: Thanks for linking to your review of 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows. I read it in July last year, but unsurprisingly for me, didn't get around to reviewing it. I'd agree with you that the early part about Ai Weiwei's childhood during his father's persecution was more interesting than the self absorbed later part. However, despite the self absorption, outside his writing, in the real world, I really like seeing his work.

Despite wanting to read it for some time, I only read it last year because it had a tenuous link to a book by Ha Jin that I had just finished: The Woman back from Moscow. The material for that novel was fascinating, although it could have been half or even a third the length of the published edition.

Sun Weishi (Li Lin) was Zhou Enlai's adopted daughter, after the death of her father at the hands of the Kuomintang. Like many other educated Chinese during the years of Sino Soviet cooperation she spent time in Moscow, becoming a theatre director, which earned her the wrath of Jiang Qing once she returned to Beijing.

The real life link was the inclusion of Ai Qing's poetry in Ha's novel, although it was a very brief mention.

The novel itself was fascinating when dealing with factual material, but the prose, especially in romantic situations, was positively embarrassingly bad, and really detracted from the novel.


Zhou Enlai, Deng Yingchao (Zhou's wife), and Sun Weishi

>36 thorold: Intrigued by the Vasquez.

Like >37 rocketjk: looking forward to your review of Soul Mountain

>38 labfs39: Another title for me to track down. Sounds pretty far from Mao's "Women hold up half the sky"

>39 SassyLassy: "Thanks for linking to your review of 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows. . . . Despite wanting to read it for some time, I only read it last year because it had a tenuous link to a book by Ha Jin that I had just finished: The Woman back from Moscow. "

I only read it because one of the fellows in my book group chose it one month. Still, all in all I am glad to have read it.

Golden Age by Wang Xiaobo this edition published in 2024, translated by Yan Yan (2022)
technically three novellas
first published in Chinese in Taiwan in 1992, then published in the PRC
finished reading July 6, 2025

I have to say that I love the cover in >42 SassyLassy:. It may look like a cliché now, but it was a definite look back in the time of the GPCR.

The book's cover says it is titled The Memory of Youth No.4 Going Home by Liu Kong, 2006

>43 SassyLassy: Yes, that cover had a lot to do with me picking up the book. I don’t really know anything about that style, but I’d recently seen a very striking example they have in the Allen Museum in Oberlin, OH, and it immediately clicked with me!
https://allenartcollection.oberlin.edu/objects/40717/a-sleepless-night?ctx=4e648...

>44 thorold: That is a great example of poster art, and I love the poster on the wall within the poster. The subject matter reminds me of Mao's "Study Hard and Make Progress Every Day", which I had around me in various formats for years. Maybe I should dig it up again for much needed motivation.

As promised, even if it took me far too long to read it:

Soul Mountain (1989,2000) by Gao Xingjian (China, etc. 1940- ), translated from Chinese by Mabel Lee

>46 thorold: Wonderful review. This is the time for me to finally read it - but first I have to read One Man's Bible which is actually on my TBR.
Mabel Lee is a translator I haven't encountered before. I see it took her seven years to do the Soul Mountain translation. She also did One Man's Bible. No time like the present.

An author I’ll definitely be reading again:



Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke translated from the Chinese by Cindy Carter (2009)
first published as Ding zhuang meng 2005
finished reading July 23, 2025

Dream of Ding Village is based on the AIDS crisis in China; a crisis originally denied by the authorities. It wasn’t until the late 1990s and the early years of the 2000s that the problem received recognition. Here is some of the early outside reporting:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/25/aids.china

https://archive-yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/report-ground-zero-chinas-aids-crisi...

A leader in exposing the crisis in the PRC itself:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67678490

Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei (Lui Yong), translated from the Chinese by Canaan Morse (2020)
first published as Ren mian tao hua in 2004
finished reading August 5, 2025

There are many representations of the Peach Blossom Paradise in Chinese art. Here is one which seems most like the one described in the novel, with both the legend and the painting:



Gu Fuzhen, 1706
image from Wikipedia

Here is another showing the village:

Zhang Hong, 1638, hand scroll, ink and colour on paper
image from the met museum.org

more on the poem and one of its visual representations:
https://read.dukeupress.edu/jclc/article/2/1/1/9995/Introduction

Thank you for all the links and information. I've been swamped by life the last few weeks, but hope to return to this challenge before the end. I apologize for not being a more active participant.

>52 labfs39: Life seems to swamp us at the most unexpected times, and reading goes right out the window.

Hope you get back this quarter, but if not, you know you can always post later!

I had this on my list — not sure who recommended it to me, but the exiled writer Ma Jian is covered in >10 SassyLassy: above, so maybe I noted his name from there. Not hard to see why he’s unwelcome in China! The cover design for this novel was by Ai Weiwei.

China Dream (2018) by Ma Jian (China, 1953- ), translated by Flora Drew

>54 thorold: China Dream was indeed a powerful book, but yet, like you, I didn't rate it that highly. I preferred the other two of his books I have read, especially Beijing Coma.

However, the combination of the book and its cover by Ai Wei Wei, that you mention, is certainly a strong message. Ma was certainly pleased with it, describing the cover saying In the shattered branches I see the brutality of autocracy, the splintering of the self, and the human soul's yearning for freedom. It encapsulates everything I wanted China Dream to say.

Ma's translator, Flora Drew, is also his partner. More about their work together here:
https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2019-05/an-interview-with-ma-jian-a...

>55 SassyLassy: Interesting — I did think a couple of times as I was reading that the translation “felt” less like a translation than I would have expected, but it’s hard to put a finger on why, exactly. Obviously it does have an effect when the translator knows the writer of the original so well, however much they say they keep their work separate from each other.

I was amused by the comment about reading other people’s translations and mentally reconstructing what the original must have been. That often happens to me when I read a slightly clumsy phrase in a translation from a language I know.

I haven't read Jian Ma before, but perhaps I should give Beijing Coma a try. Seems apropos given our new CDC director's stance on buying and selling organs.

I will be reading Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China I so enjoyed her first book Wild Swan and I can see this would be really interesting so looking forward to getting started

>57 labfs39: It's definitely one of the bleakest books I have ever read, but as you know, I like bleak. However, it was the first I read with Tien an Men as the focus, and I found it very forceful and relevant. Best to be in a good space when you read it though.

>58 cindydavid4: I haven't read that, so looking forward to what you think, and whether or not it echoes Wild Swans.

__________
edited for spelling

>57 labfs39: Thanks for that warning. Although I too read a lot of bleak books, I do have to be careful with books that trigger my anxieties about the present.

>60 labfs39: Have you read Waiting? That might be a good fit.

Something for the lag between posts: a totally different kind of writing from the PRC.

This is from a recent CBC radio programme called Ideas. This episode discusses "What Chinese Science Fiction Has to Tell Us", referencing Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16166979-what-chinese-scien...

>61 SassyLassy: I did read Waiting. I liked Ha Jin's War Trash even more. I have several more of his books on my shelves... waiting...

>62 SassyLassy: Thanks for posting that link, Sassy. I found it quite interesting, especially the conversations around gender and around censorship of science fiction. Liu Cixin was very adept at sidestepping questions he didn't want to answer. "Technology fetishism" was also an interesting topic.

>62 SassyLassy: our book group read that and found it fascinating. very intereared in the clip thanks for that

I just started reading the three sisters, I so enjoyed how Jung wrote Wild Swan and i see she uses the same style here.

>64 labfs39: >65 cindydavid4: The conversation did make me think perhaps I should revise my attitude toward SF, as it is definitely a way to talk about the state of it all.

>64 labfs39: I noticed the "sidestepping" too, but I suspect in his position, living in the PRC, I'd be as "adept" as possible too!

>65 cindydavid4: Looking forward to hearing how you find Wild Swans.

oh I read it a few decades ago and loved it Her r writing of each woman and generation was spot on and it was my first introduction to the the fultural revolution, which Liu Cixin addressed very well . Im finding the three sisters written in the same style as wild swans I think the two books makes an excellent introuction of modern China in these three eras, as well as the three woman who lived though them

More reviews to come before this thread disappears into obscurity, but in the meantime, going back to cover discussions above, at the end of Dream of Ding Village there is a trio of outlines about the artists who have illustrated Vintage editions of Yan Lianke's books.

1. Wang Guangyi



- born in Harbin in 1957
- graduated from Zhejiang Fine Arts Academy (Hangzhou) in 1984
- part of the political pop art movement of the 1980s, his paintings blend western pop art with Chinese propaganda posters

2. Duan Jianwei



- Born in Xuchang, Henan Province in 1961
- graduated from the Department of Fine Barts, Henan University
- known for "his idealised rural scenes, which convey the profound serenity of rural life"
- also inspired by ancient Chinese statuary and painting, as well as more recently, shape, volume and colour

3. Zhong Biao



- born in Chongqing in 1968
- graduated from Zhejiang Fine Arts Academy (Hangzhou) in 1987
- his paintings "feature cultural symbols and human figures that seem to defy the limits of time and space"
- influenced by the always changing Chinese ambience
- considered to be "one of the most influential Chinese artists in the world"

Finally, finally, I have finished my other reading obligations, and have returned to China. I decided to start with Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, the pseudonym of Lü Jiamin. It's a novel informed by the author's 11 years spent in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. Lü would become a professor upon his return to Beijing, was arrested for his role in the Tiananmen Square protests, and is unable to get a passport to this day. Wolf Totem is his first novel and was published under a pen name. The book was an instant runaway success, although no one knew his identity until the book won the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007. According to Wikipedia, Penguin Books paid US$100,000 for the worldwide English rights, setting a record for the highest amount paid for the translation rights to a Chinese book, at least at that time.



Chen Zhen is a "sent-down" youth, a university student sent to the countryside, in Olonbulag, the grassland steppes of Mongolia. He and three other Han Chinese share a yurt and are taught to be sheep herders. After two pivotal encounters with Mongolian wolf packs, he becomes fascinated with them, studying them and even adopting a cub. When Han Chinese settlers arrive on the steppe, Mongolian and Chinese, traditional and modern, spiritual and secular collide.

Wikipedia: Wolf Totem
Wikipedia: Jiang Rong

>69 labfs39: I did like Wolf Totem a lot. I've also seen the film version, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It was actually filmed in Inner Mongolia, and was beautiful to watch, if not exactly true to the novel (but then what film is?).

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/02/wolf-totem-review-montreal-world-fi...

One Man’s Bible by Gao Xingjian translated from the Chinese by Mabel Lee (2002)
first published as Yi ge ren de sheng jing in 1999 in Taipei
finished reading August 30, 2025, on the TBR since November 3, 2003

In 2000, Gao Xingjian became the first Chinese person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The citation read "for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity." He was no longer living in the PRC at the time, and it would not be until 2012 that an actual resident, Mo Yan would win.

Another of Gao's books is reviewed at >46 thorold: (now I have to read that book). These themes, which also appear in >71 SassyLassy: are Gao's major concerns.

However, one reviewer, from The Guardian was not nearly so kind: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/nov/30/featuresreviews.guardianreview29

>70 SassyLassy: I would watch it just for the scenery. Speaking of which, have you seen To the Wonder? It's a 2024 Chinese drama, adapted from Li Juan's memoir, My Altay. Absolutely gorgeous, although one can't help but think it's propaganda meant to smooth things over with international opinion regarding the Uyghur. It was the first Chinese-language film to be nominated at Cannes for the Best Long Drama Competition.

I'm finally back to report on this book I said I was reading when the group read was announced. I finished it a while ago but feel I can still give a good review on how I felt about the book.

Jung Chang : Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China

(My review uses the Chinese names as Jung Chang writes them.)

My now third Jung Chang book, having formally read her Mao and Empress Cixi biographies, and I will say this is the weakest of the three.
Chang states herself in the introduction that her original idea was to write about Sun Yat-sen and Chang Kai-shek but when she struggled to put it all together she put the project aside. In the meantime she wrote those other biographies. However, the idea remained on her mind until she found the link she was looking for: the Soong sisters.

The three sisters grew up with money as her father had done very well for themselves. They got educations abroad in America and kept that strong international mindset throughout their lifetime. The youngest sister May-ling married Chiang Kai-shek; the middle sister Ei-long married the finance minister and became the richest of them all; the eldest sister Ching-ling was married to Sun Yat-sen and then after his death separated politically from her family and supported communism.

Jung Chang takes a very feminist approach to everything she writes, for example the whole reason she wrote the Cixi (Tseu-hi) biography was to show that the empress had actually been a tremendous leader but was only labeled as "the dragon lady" due to her position as a woman. Chang is explicit in stating that Cixi was apologetic for her obvious mistakes and regretted them, and so her accomplishments shouldn't be stolen. So by looking at the women behind the famous men of the nationalist movement, Chang again takes a feminist look at these men by focusing on the women behind the men. And this approach is necessary and important but the thing is, I don't think she really succeeded. At the end of the day after having read the book I'm still not sure what the sisters really contributed to other than travelling and spending money. Yes, Mai-ling is said to have been active in supporting the troops and providing them materials and whatnot, but it all felt very superficial. Chang never really goes in deeply into WHAT they did, just merely states that they were involved while not really telling us how.

In turn the men turn into these lazy, degenerate, rather useless personas, rather different from the image most have of them. And it makes me wonder if Chang didn't go too far into their portrayal. I would have to read other biographies on these men before I state either or.

I should add that the nonfiction editon itself is wonderful. The amount of pictures included allowed for a great look at all these important political figures.

In any case, although still interesting a book, I definitely got less out of this book that her other works. But it did plug in a nice little hole in my look at this period of Chinese history.

Since I mentioned that the previous book filled in a nice little hole I wanted to show what I mean by indicating what nonfiction books I've read from the time period and where they fit in the timeline.

Jung Chang : Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
Princess Der Ling : Two Years in the Forbidden City
Shi Dan : Mémoires d'un eunuque dans la cité interdite

- these three set up everything about Cixi from three directions, a general biography, followed by a memoir by one of her ladies-in-waiting, and then a memoir by one of the eunuques who attended to her

Jonathan D. Spence : The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution
Jung Chang : Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China

- these two are good at looking at the political transition at hand that would lead to the rise of communism; Spence's focus is on the common people and intellectuals while Chang focuses on the top elite at the time

Jung Chang : Mao: The Unknown Story
Cédric Gras : Alpinistes de Mao
Hongci Xu : No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison
Yiwu Liao : Des balles et de l'opium

- a great biography that spans Mao's whole history; an interesting look at Mao's attempt to send untrained Chinese men to be the first to reach the top of Mt. Everest so as to create the image of a superior China; a look at a man who escaped Mao's labor camps; followed by a look at a man targetted after the events of Tiananmen Square.

Pingru Rao : Our Story: A Memoir of Love and Life in China
- finally a book about a couple living through these times, leaving all political opinion out, just showing what it was like to create a family

So again I think I've managed a nice rounded look at the time period. I have a few more books I'd like to read though of course.

>73 labfs39: I haven't seen it, but will look for it - thanks!

>74 lilisin: I read an earlier book about the Soong sisters, The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, which brings in the father's role in Chinese politics as well. It was an interesting general overview, but like your book, probably suffers from superficiality.

>75 lilisin: That's quite a list. You remind me that Princess Der Ling and Shi Dan are on my TBR.

A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters by Yang Jiang translated from the Chinese by Geremie Barmé
first published in 1982 as Kan hsiao liu chi
finished reading September 3, 2025

I had hoped to finish Wolf Totem before the official end of this theme read, but alas, I did not. I am still reading it, however, and find it fascinating, although the descriptions of animal death can be quite vivid. I'm not sure I want to watch the movie, if all of that is portrayed! I will report back when I finish.

SassyLassy, are you planning to informally keeping the thread alive? I hope so, because I do want to continue reading from China, and it's nice have the group to inspire me and provide a forum for discussion. No pressure though!

>78 labfs39: It's great when these thread continue on, so yes, go ahead and post!

I know there are many threads for this group to which I return when looking for particular reviews or new inspiration.

Looking forward to you thoughts on Wolf Totem, whenever that may be. No pressure though!

>78 labfs39: >79 SassyLassy: Yes, please keep on posting relevant stuff here. There’s a list of all the previous theme read threads with links on the Reading Globally group page.

If anyone’s looking for the Q4 theme read, it’s here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/374243 — looking forward to seeing you all there!

>74 lilisin: At the end of the day after having read the book I'm still not sure what the sisters really contributed to other than travelling and spending money.

see I had th opposite look. I think the author did a great job of juggling the various people and events in an interesing way She certainly shows the sisters actively again againm helping their communites when they were in great need (and often times when their lives were in endangered), they certainly helped their husbands and each other. and btw, one part did surprise me when the army was gathering supplies for their escape,, and oh yeah picked up a few bodies for anatomy class I cant find where that is and I am not sure i really read it. did you see it?

however I was then taken aback by the financial dealins and straight out stealing all three of them did (esp Eling)
Ching-ling relationship with the communists was troublesone esp when she swiched sides constanly.

as far as the men, given what Ive read in other books bout them, their behavior didnt surprise me

I have not finished, so its possible my opinion changes when I do. but I dont think Ill change my mind about her writting , her charcterization of the sisters and the horrific times they lived in. Like you this also plugged a hole in this time and place and now which I always appreciate

have finished; the ending was a summary of alll the people involed which I appreciated; some very sad storie , other missing, but none really happy in the end. didnt expect it so

Translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt
Originally published 2004, this translation 2008, 527p.

>16t his is a quarter I'm excited about, but I also want to know:

What will you be reading? big sister,little sister,red sister and Jungs new one fly wild swan

If you've been reading Chinese fiction, how did you come to it?

looking for a book to read in my sisters shelve came across the good earthIt was a while before I heard the problems with the book and the writer, but I read it over several times, till just a few years ago, I still think its a wonderful book

Do you have a favourite Chinese author?

dont have just one but one of my fav books court of the lionabout the Tang dynasty and its interesting fall. this was one of those books that I constantly looked on wiki to see if different events were real; they all were

Do you have a books waiting on your TBR pile, or is this all new to you

eager to read many of the books you listed!

>82 labfs39: I cant find my post but would someone please delete court of lion great book but the authors are not Chinese

Hello friends! I was directed here by @SassyLassy. Enjoyed catching up on everyone's reviews and added several books to my TBR! I'm sharing my review of Xuetao Shang's collection of short stories, Hunter:

A new novel by Ha Jin exploring the Tiananmen Square events of May and June 1989 - crossposted from my Club Read thread


Looking for Tank Man
first published 2025

I neglected to share my read and review from last Fall.

>89 RBeffa: What a lovely edition to have. And I definitely agree that it is a devastatingly sad story indeed.