China is on the move. Certitudes are shattered, conventions dissolve. Jing Bartz, head of the German Book Office of the Frankfurt Book Fair in Beijing from 2003-2010, has managed to catch this existing tension in her anthology ‹Unterwegs› with ten texts from authors who represent modern-day China.
The ten authors in this book all live in China, but are also inhabitants of a globalised world. This creates a dynamic environment, which also fascinates the western reader and makes the texts accessible to them. Having been spared the trauma of the Mao era, these young authors feel the pulse of time: unagitated, entertaining and ironic, without wagging a finger and without nostalgic feelings, but also without glorifying the gold-rush mood, which the West likes to associate with present day China. Each writer holds a mirror up to modern China in his or her individual manner.
Fan Wen and Lu Min will be reading passages from their books.
