The Thrilling Truth
A new thriller set in 1930s Shanghai includes just enough historical detail to be believable. But is history at risk of being overtaken by fiction?
Don’t Write Off the Mao Dun Literature Prize
Never mind the Booker, Pulitzer and National Book Award — China’s Mao Dun Prize, despite its behind-the-times reputation, can shift the reading habits of a...
Ep. 11: Beijing in Short Fiction
China’s capital is so difficult to capture that sometimes only fiction can suffice. The editor of a new short story collection explains how a literary...
The Habit of Hoping
In the wake of Tiananmen, can a mother’s love, or a wife’s concern, transcend national trauma?
What China’s Reading: Short Stories
Chinese literature has a long-standing, often fantastical tradition of the short story form. Five modern collections, from both the mainland and Taiwan, show that legacy...
Translated Chinese Literature: Trauma Fiction
Chinese writers have long used fiction to process trauma, both historical and personal. In these five newly translated titles, the trend continues in modern settings,...
Yiyun Li: ‘You’re Always Chinese’
The Chinese-born writer of fiction and memoir left in 1996 and has moved on to other settings in her work. But can a writer ever...
Ep. 6: Spy Novels, True Thriller
The China Books podcast talks to Adam Brookes, author of a China spy novel trilogy and a WWII non-fiction thriller, about writing on China for...
Translated Chinese Literature: Winter Warmers
Our columnist picks another five recently translated titles — from Hong Kong tea house poetry to a self-help seal — and reviews the state of...
Washing History
A new novel about the Chinese Civil War feels true to the author’s experience of it, but also amplifies the Party’s preferred version of the...
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.
Ep. 1: Chinese Fiction in the Reform Era
When China opened up in the 1980s, how did fiction writers respond to their new-found — but fragile — freedoms of expression? The China Books...
