A dystopian vision of China

摘要

Ma Jian-probably the most successful Chinese exile writer in the UK-has been notably tough on China in his previous novels. The Noodle Maker (2004) denounced the hypocrisy and vulgarity of contemporary China as it abandoned communism for capitalism. Beijing Coma (2008) revisited in painstaking detail the Communist Party's bloody suppression of prodemocracy protests in 1989. But Ma Jian's earlier books seem almost sinophile when compared with the overwhelming bleakness of The Dark Road.