Deadly Quiet City

Compelling author story: Murong Xuecun is one of China's most famous contemporary authors. A writer of novels and narrative non-fiction, he has been a fearlessly independent voice from inside China. Before the government's crackdown on his work, he had over 8.5 million followers on Weibo and almost 4 million on Sina. In addition to his books, he also wrote a New York Times opinion column from 2011 through 2016. But in 2013 the Chinese authorities erased Murong's popular microblogs and he had to stop writing for the Times several years later when it became too dangerous. Murong's notable narrative non-fiction, The Missing Ingredient (2010), was awarded the 2010 People's Literature Prize. However, on the day of the award ceremony, Murong was barred from speaking. His banned acceptance speech about literary freedom was published in the New York Times and syndicated around the world. Collecting and writing personal stories from the pandemic is extremely dangerous in China, and Murong would undoubtedly have faced imprisonment if he had been caught writing this work. In order to have it published, he recently left China for good with just one bag and his laptop and is now living in Australia.

Media: Murong is in touch with his former editor at the New York Times and plans to write on the current situation in China. (His English is adequate, but he will have two translators who will be working with him throughout).

New material: The book was published in Australia in February 2022. Murong will write a new introduction and epilogue tying into what is happening now in China.

Popularity in China: Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu is estimated to have sold over 500,000 print copies in Chinese. Dancing Through Red Dust has sold an estimated 100,000 copies in Chinese.