Literature in China

CNN.com - Red fades to gray - Mar 24, 2006

CNN profiles new Chinese writers.

Ma [Jian]’s last book, 2004’s “The Noodle Maker,” strikes a darker tone. Cynical to the point of almost being bitter, it is filled with tales of alienation and lost hope for the Tiananmen generation, with a jabbing finger of dark humor at authorities. If “Red Dust” is China’s answer to Kerouac, “The Noodle Maker” is more in line with Kafka.

Ma makes no apologies for his continued focus on politics.

“Ordinary people don’t know or don’t have the opportunity to talk about what’s going on, so it’s the author’s responsibility to take a stand and supply some kind of spiritual, intellectual force,” he says, speaking through his translator and partner, Flora Drew.

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