China Witness

By Nicky Harman and Julia Lovell, published by Chatto & Windus in January, 2008.

This oral history consists of interviews of a dozen elderly people, from a woman general to a shoe-mender, with remarkable memories of life in China in the 20th century. (By Xue Xinran, originally from Nanjing, lives in London but continues to write in Chinese*. ) Translated jointly by Nicky Harman, Julia Lovell and Esther Tyldesley.