Ma Jian
Ma Jian
Ma Jianis a Chinese writer...
NationalityChinese
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth18 August 1953
CountryChina
responsibility writing self
China is completely lacking in self-awareness and as someone who has stepped outside that society, I have a responsibility to write about it as I see it.
self-worth body individual
Only when you are aware of the uniqueness of everyones individual body will you begin to have a sense of your own self-worth.
writing self expression
To become self-aware, people must be allowed to hear a plurality of opinions and then make up their own minds. They must be allowed to say, write and publish whatever they want. Freedom of expression is the most basic, but fundamental, right. Without it, human beings are reduced to automatons.
achieve gives obvious route shows success turns twists
'Three Kingdoms' gives you a panoply of different routes; everyone can find their own path. It shows that sometimes the route to fulfilment or success is not the obvious one. You must take twists and turns to achieve a goal.
china chinese communist people won
On the face of it, China has won the Olympics. But it is not China that has won, but the Communist party. The Chinese people have lost.
people ways
When people are poor, they find ways of making things taste like fish.
began finished knocking kong moved next police soon work
While I was writing 'Stick Out Your Tongue' in Beijing, the police began knocking on my door again. As soon as I finished the book, I moved to Hong Kong so that I could work undisturbed on my next novel.
agreeing chinese demands exchange expression freedom government lives material pact political prosperous
The Chinese have made a faustian pact with the government, agreeing to forsake demands for political and intellectual freedom in exchange for more material comfort. They live prosperous lives in which any expression of pain is forbidden.
I am a writer. Being critical is a writer's responsibility.
feeling land painful private return within
I have to live within my memories, within my private universe, and continually return to China, the land where my thoughts are locked. This is a very painful kind of existence, this feeling of nowhereness.
art joined
In my 20s, when I was a photojournalist in Beijing. I joined an underground art group and put on clandestine exhibitions of my paintings.
country exile however internal
If you exile a writer, however free the country he is sent to, there will always be a sense of internal constraint.
favour
I am completely in favour of dialogue and engagement. But it must be a true, open dialogue.
becomes link physical spoken urban word written
When the written and spoken word is censored, the urban landscape becomes a nation's only physical link to the past.