About the Author

Jianying Zha is a writer, media critic, and China representative of the India China Institute at The New School. She is the author of "China Pop" and three collections of fiction and two nonfiction books in Chinese, including "The Eighties," an award-winning cultural retrospective of the 1980s in China. She has published widely in both Chinese and English for a variety of publications, including the "New Yorker," the "New York Times," "Dushu," and "Wanxiang." She lives in Beijing and New York.

Reviews

A Best Book of 2011
—The Economist

"Remarkable and fast paced."
—Financial Times

"Zha beautifully combines the hard-earned expertise of an insider with the moral candor of an outsider. In exploring China’s defining struggles . . . [she] illuminate[s] the shadows in between, with empathy and courage."
—Evan Osnos, The New Yorker

"If you want to understand the astonishing developments in China’s contemporary cultural life . . . there could be no surer or more entertaining guide than Zha."
—K. Anthony Appiah, Princeton University

"An engaging, comprehensible cross-section of the personalities and cultural concerns rising with China’s ascent."
—Kirkus

"No one who writes in English about contemporary China is more thoroughly bilingual and bicultural than Jianying Zha. She truly 'gets it.'"
—Perry Link, author of Evening Chats in Beijing