Two months ago at the London Book Fair, where China was this year’s “guest of honor,” Ma Jian, the exiled author of the Tiananmen-era novel “Beijing Coma,” inked a red X across his face in an emotional protest against Chinese censorship. It may be a sign of the times that while drawing attention from the Western press, the move went almost unnoticed by other Chinese authors present, many of whom still live in China and find ways to circumvent the authorities.
Louisa Lim is the author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, and a Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Michigan. Lim is an award-winning journalist, and a...
Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Chancellor’s Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. His most recent books, both published in 2016, are, as author, Eight Juxtapositions: China through...