The Gray Zone - How Chinese Writers Elude Censors
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/books/review/how-chinese-writers-elude-censors.html?pagewanted=all
Over the past year and a half, several political developments — from the Arab Spring to the purge of the charismatic Chongqing leader, Bo Xilai — have made China’s leaders especially jittery. This has led to online crackdowns, including the temporary suspension of Murong’s wildly popular microblog. Last month, China’s biggest microblogging site announced a new code of conduct, punishing those who post information deemed inappropriate in a bid to limit “sensitive content.” The authorities have arrested some gadfly writers who, in less paranoid times, might have been censored but left alone.
Comments
The article mentions Yan Lianke's Four Books, which is set during the famine of the Great Leap Forward and was published in Taiwan. Someone in my Douban feed just shared this review, which is thought-provoking but contains the jaw-dropping contention that the reason the book wasn't published on the mainland was not that its subject matter is in fact off-limits but rater that it is a calculated retread of material done earlier and better by other writers (Yang Xianhui is favored by the reviewer), as if novelty and sincerity are notable qualities of every book published on the mainland:
jdmartinsen, June 16, 2012, 11:28a.m.