Revolution in literature

How is it that a land known for repression has produced so many novelists? Since the 1980s, a number of Chinese novelists have emerged whose books sell in the millions.

Most came of age under Chairman Mao. They experienced firsthand the Cultural Revolution. Their parents lived through the Great Leap Forward and the famine in which tens of millions died, and the Hundred Flowers campaign, Mao's dirty trick on the intellectuals. They bear the stamp of all these brutalities on their lives and work.

But they have also witnessed the astonishing turnaround of Mao's successors, the economic liberalisation which has changed the face (and soul) of China. Over time the state also became smarter about social control. Now the Chinese can say and write what they like, so long as they do not criticise Party and government.

There has been a cultural renaissance