• The China Blog

    LARB’s China Blog covers the life, culture, politics and literature of China. It is edited by Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham. If you’re looking for blog posts prior to September 2013, please visit our China Blog tumblr page.

    Getting Up to Speed on the Cultural Revolution, Part 2 — Some Works of Fiction

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    By Jeff Wasserstrom In our last post, we pointed readers toward a memoir, a narrative history, a collection of essays …

    Getting Up to Speed on the Cultural Revolution — A First Set of Suggestions

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    By Jeff Wasserstrom This year marks the 50th anniversary of the start and the 40th anniversary of the end of …

    “Wallpaper: The Shanghai Collection” — A Q&A with James Bollen

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    By Anne Witchard The title of James H. Bollen’s new book — Wallpaper: The Shanghai Collection — makes an ironic gesture …

    The New Life in English of an Old Eileen Chang Novel

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    By Susan Blumberg-Kason Eileen Chang’s fiction mirrored her life. Shanghai comes alive in her pages, from the political turmoil in …

    The Mermaid

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    By Austin Dean First released in China on February 8th, The Mermaid (Meiren yu) took less than two weeks to …

    The Cultural Revolution at 50 — A Q&A with Four Specialists (Part Two)

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    By Alexander C. Cook [Editors’ note: This is the second of a two-part interview Alexander C. Cook conducted with four …

    The Cultural Revolution at 50: A Q&A with Four Specialists (Part One)

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    By Alexander C. Cook [Editors’ note: This is the first of a two-part roundtable interview we invited Alexander C. Cook, …

    The Secret Sexual Life of Zhou Enlai and the Limits of Historical Knowledge

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    By Jeremiah Jenne Zhou Enlai remains one of the most enigmatic figures in modern Chinese history. For nearly five decades, …

    The Next Unicorn?

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    By Austin Dean It’s hard to keep up with Chinese economic news: CEOs being detained by the public security apparatus, …

    Watching Big Brother: A Q&A with Chinese Political Cartoonist Badiucao

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    By Sophie Beach The invaluable China Digital Times website, which has a regular “Drawing the News” feature and publishes related …