Last August I read online the excerpt here below of Let 100 Voices Speak. The title and content focus on how social media flourished and has taken China by storm. Also, the various correlations the writer points out between the past and present e.g. on movement, dissidents, targeting of influential intellectuals.
Coincidentally today’s news in The Telegraph brought these premises to the foreground with the headline: “Chinese human right lawyer stands trial for social media posts in China.”
Internet censorship in China is extreme, authors and publishers are under pressure appeared as a headline news article in the Guardian just a month ago. Novelist Sheng KeYi had written a best-selling breakthrough novel over a decade ago, but while preparing the third edition she was informed that parts of her texts were not publishable.
In her book “Northern Girls” she writes about the problems of society: the “injustice, the inequality, and the darkness”. The author tells the story of Poor Chinese Women to critical acclaim, review by The New York Times.
Let 100 Voices Speak, on “The Darkness”, Liz Carter answers to a question whether she was active on China’s social media as an outsider looking in and what spiked her interest.
LC: It’s hard to pick just one thing, but I love Chinese Internet humor. It’s so complex, and references a lot of shared knowledge, and it can be very, very dark. Humor is under-appreciated as a form of protest and resistance, especially humor in China. Part of this is because humor is so hard to translate.
Let 100 Voices Speak: How the Internet Is Transforming China and Changing Everything Paperback – August 30, 2015
By author Liz Carter, she is the author and translator of numerous Chinese-language textbooks and the co-author of The Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon.
Article by Natalie Omell originally posted on China Digital times – Highlights excerpt here below or read the full article click here.
Live feed on my screen flashing the latest internet headlines blurbs of today. Focusing on China, real life time changes in the face of censorship and the visible pressure clamping down on social media. The information reminded me of having read the book excerpt earlier and seeing the correspondence in real life occurrences.
For me, what comes to mind are keywords as in hashtags; #social media, #China, #transformation, #lifestyle, #femalewriters #newwriting #information not readily available, the more reason to learn more about.
Voices and Northern Girls
Recommend to read both books;
- Let 100 Voices Speak: How the Internet is Transforming China and Changing Everything, the role of social media.
Let 100 Voices Speak – Liz Carter
- Northern Girls; Life goes on. Best-selling Chinese novel one of the few translated Chinese fiction books in English. Words are written in raw candour showing a slice of life, the harsh reality where little town village girls are leaving home for the bigger cities to be drawn into the depravity of a seedy cesspool. Hidden dangers nobody wants to see or talk about.
Northern Girls, Live goes on by Sheng Keyi
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Photo credits “Let 100 Voices Speak” featured image source: www.cityweekend.com.cn