This Generation: Dispatches from China’s Most Popular Literary Star (and Race Car Driver)

Over the past five years, Han, an insouciant public figure and dashing race car driver, has been churning out blog posts and brief essays with dizzying speed. Ranging over topics from political reform to prostitutes, Han’s often sarcastic and regularly satirical writings have been censored by the Chinese government but have won him adoring fans throughout China and around the world. Perhaps because of the translation and perhaps because of the flat-as-pavement prose itself, the blog posts in this first-ever volume of Han’s work introduce us to pedestrian observations on any number of subjects. Han reflects on the value of requiring the writing of essays in an academic setting, for example: “Writing essays essentially is a hobby, a love, like gardening or fishing—it’s not something you can force people to do.” On the faltering management of the Chinese government by its officials: “I realize that many things are actually not a problem to begin with, but once officials start to intervene, a small thing becomes big, and big thing blows up in their faces.” (Oct.)