Author Yiyun Li argues that Eileen Chang’s later writing suffered more for personal reasons than because of the Communist Revolution:

…As I reread Chinese writers of the first half of the twentieth century, I confront similar complexities: What if the Communist Revolution had never occurred? Shen Congwen would have continued to produce masterpieces, rather than suffering a breakdown due to the crushing political pressure of the time, as he did in reality, and giving up fiction altogether. His is the most tragic loss for Chinese literature of the past century, at least in my very biased view as a great admirer of his work, and perhaps in the opinions of the editors of The Guardian, who included him a few years ago among a list of ten translated writers who should be read more widely. Lu Xun, on the other hand, would not have been codified as a literary god. He was a fine storyteller, but ideology was a magnifying glass that swelled his artistic merit beyond reason.
Like Shen Congwen, Eileen Chang was a writer censored by the Maoist government; however, her trajectory as an artist was far less influenced by their shared historical context. (I am very aware that this perspective will be frowned upon by many of her followers, and indeed Chang has more loyal followers than perhaps any other Chinese author.) …

A long excerpt from the Man Booker prize winning novel:

She explained a little. Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepre neurs - we entrepreneurs - have set up all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now.

You hope to learn how to make a few Chinese entrepreneurs, that’s why you’re visiting. That made me feel good. But then it hit me that in keeping with international protocol, the prime minister and foreign minister of my country will meet you at the airport with garlands, small take-home sandalwood statues of Gandhi, and a booklet full of information about India’s past, present, and future.

That’s when I had to say that thing in English, sir. Out loud.

That was at 11:37 p.m. Five minutes ago.

I don’t just swear and curse. I’m a man of action and change. I decided right there and then to start dictating a letter to you.

To begin with, let me tell you of my great admiration for the ancient nation of China. …

Only three nations have never let themselves be ruled by foreigners: China, Afghanistan, and Abyssinia. These are the only three nations I admire.

Out of respect for the love of liberty shown by the Chinese people, and also in the belief that the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted him self through buggery, mobile phone usage, and drug abuse, I offer to tell you, free of charge, the truth about Bangalore.

By telling you my life’s story. …

Adiga’s novel focuses on a character who writes angry letters to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao:

“You know, India and China have now come into their own, and the fiction that comes out of these countries should reflect that fact. What that means is, writers from those countries need to be more critical and more harsh in looking at those countries, because they no longer need protection.”

China Beat’s Susan Jakes interviews author Leslie Chang on her new book Factory Girls:

Susan Jakes: How did you decide you wanted to write a book about migrant workers in China? What did you want to try to figure out? Was there a weakness in the existing reporting on this subject that you wanted to address?

Leslie Chang: The book project began with a bit of an agenda. I had already read some stories in the foreign press, including the Wall Street Journal, about how terrible the conditions in the factories were. The stories tended to focus on the worst cases, the abuses, the miseries, the horrible bosses, the injuries. They tended to portray migration as a desperate act without much of a pay-off for people…

A new short story by Yiyun Li:

He was raised by his mother alone, as she was by her father. She wondered if his mother, who had set up their date, had told him about that.

Siyu was thirty-eight, and the man, Hanfeng, was forty-four. Siyu’s father, after supporting her through college, had remarried, choosing a woman thirty years his junior. The woman had a young son from her previous marriage, whom Siyu’s father had taken on as his responsibility. The boy was now in his last year of high school, and Siyu, having told her father many times that he deserved peace and simplicity, maintained a respectful distance from his new family. Each year she spent New Year’s Eve, and sometimes other holidays, with Hanfeng’s mother, who had been her zoology professor in college. There was no way to predict when the older woman would be in the mood to invite Siyu, so she tried to keep herself uncommitted, which meant that most of the holidays she spent alone. …

After reading an article about Sidney Rittenberg, author Xujun Eberlein recalls her own personal story of him:
“Three years ago, after reading Rittenberg’s book The Man Who Stayed Behind, I posted a review on Amazon. To my surprise, three months later, just before Christmas, I received an email – in Chinese – from Rittenberg, who not only read my review but also one of my short stories online…”

Novelist Amy Tan talks about her family, her writing, and the conundrum of China:

“‘The Bonesetter’s Daughter,’ not unlike your other novels, tells the story of an anxious American woman and her overbearing Chinese mother. How much of it is autobiographical?”

“I had a wonderful mother. And she was supportive of everything I did. From the beginning, she said I could become a homeless person.”

“Very funny.”

“I had a very demanding mother. I thought I disappointed her in every single way. She wanted me to be a concert pianist, and that would be on weekends. My day job would be brain surgeon. It’s kind of ironic that my mother wanted me to be a brain surgeon, because our family had so many neurological diseases.”

A look at the influential Chinese journal ‘Dushu’ in its heyday, the years 1996-2005:

“The publication date for this long-planned selection of articles from Dushu—probably China’s leading intellectual journal of the past decade, as well as its most controversial—has turned out to be highly ironic. In July 2007, even as the six-volume Essentials of Dushu collection was appearing in the bookshops, its two chief editors, Wang Hui and Huang Ping, were being dismissed from the monthly magazine by its parent company, SDX Publishing. The official grounds for this seemed scarcely plausible: initially there was talk of falling circulation, although in fact the number of Dushu subscribers had risen under Wang and Huang, from around 60,000 to well over 100,000. SDX then announced that it was implementing a company policy that required all chief editors to be full-time, rather than complement their work with university teaching, as was the case for Wang and Huang. The company could provide no explanation, however, as to why it had suddenly ‘remembered’ this policy, which had existed for many years without ever being enforced.”

Jiang Rong’s novel “Wolf Totem” is performed as a ballet by Yang Bowen, Liu Guogang, and others, and shown on CCTV 9, China’s official English language channel.

Christopher Merril talks about “Wolf Totem” by Jiang Rong and “Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out” by Mo Yan, two works recently translated into English, both “born out of the ashes of the cultural revolution in China… both tell stories of modern China, but in very different ways.”