Review

The Bones Remember

Three new books grapple with the suppressed histories of modern China, from the Cultural Revolution to the Covid pandemic. But for every state effort to bury the past, there are those who seek to dig it up.

Expulsion!

In early 2020, at the height of China’s early Covid epidemic, over a dozen American journalists were expelled from the nation. Where does that leave China coverage today?

From the Archive

A Spark Extinguished

At the height of the Great Famine in 1960, a group of students exiled to the countryside launched a magazine that dared to tell the truth. Their convictions, and the love they bore for one another, were put to the test.

Tears of Salt

Rural women in China have been disadvantaged and abused for millennia. A star Chinese journalist shows how in one village, little has changed.

Mao to Now

Communist China, once all but impenetrable, opened up only to tighten politically again. Has Xi circled back to the Mao era? And what can we learn from six decades of China writings?

Radical Changes

A Chinese novelist moves to New York. Uprooted in a new country, how can she make sense of her past? And why are they called garbanzo beans, after all?