Ep. 3: How China’s Future Looked in the Past
A 20th century Chinese public intellectual fell for the socialist dream, only to become disillusioned. His biographer tells us the full story.
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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...
What China’s Reading
Our round-up of untranslated Chinese books from the Sinophone world, from “everyday feminism” to working-class struggles, and a globetrotting frog.
Professor Pangloss Goes to Shandong
Daniel A. Bell has been proposing a Confucian, meritocratic alternative to liberal democracy for decades. In a new memoir, his optimism for the China model...
Yasheng Huang on Autocracy vs. Creativity
From its earliest imperial history, China's bureaucratic system and civil service exams have ensured homogeneity and control. But at what price?
The Shadow of Chiang Kai-shek
China’s nationalist former leader has a mixed legacy. Two new books present him in a revisionist light — but what inheritance did the Generalissimo really...
Fuchsia Dunlop on Chinese Cuisine
The culinary writer discusses the history and diversity of Chinese food, and how it has been misrepresented in the West.
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...
Ep. 2: American Correspondents in China
Foreign correspondents have been instrumental in telling the story of how China has changed since World War II. So, we turned the microphone on them.
Murong Xuecun: ‘I’ve Been Liberated From a Cage’
Formerly one of the last dissident writers left in China, Murong Xuecun is now living in exile. How does a novelist get to the point...
New Chinese Literature in Translation
Our pick of five recent fiction books translated from Chinese into English, from donkeys that see ghosts to a dystopian vision of Hong Kong.
A Contested Century
In China, the 19th century is presented as an era of national humiliation. Two new books and an exhibition attempt to humanize it. But who...