The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters

Journalist Walsh outlines trends in contemporary Chinese literature in her wide-ranging if cursory debut. She focuses on works written in the last 20 years, most of which have been translated into English, highlighting the diversity of literature in a culture where “censorship all too often reduces the arts... to an academic curio or a worthy totem of fearless political protest.” Walsh kicks things off with a look at authors who were born in the 1950s and ’60s and who lived through China’s cultural revolution, among them Ma Jian and Yu Hua, who write about “people caught up in absurd states of limbo.” The writers of the “post-80s” generation, including Han Han and Guo Jingming, meanwhile, are “seen as self-serving rebels without any cause.” She then covers the popular web novels that bring “Dickens-style serialization to the TikTok era,” and which are a target of government censorship and can see authors producing up to 30,000 words per day. While Walsh makes a fine case that “this time of economic ascension has been both liberating and crushing” for writers, she prizes breadth over depth, and fails to make a strong case about what Chinese literary tastes could mean for the West. Readers with an interest in the country’s art will appreciate the expansive reading list, but otherwise may be left wanting. (Feb.)