Yan Lianke, Chinese author, novelist and professor of Chinese literature at Renmin University in Beijing, examines contemporary China through the precepts of knowing without speaking, speaking without exposing, and using mountains as lakes and mulberry trees as locust trees.

Li Jing describes her drama Mr Lu Xun (2015) as “a one-act non-historical drama” (无场次非历史剧)—a fictional re-imagining of history that speaks candidly to the present. Introduced and translated by scholar Andreea Chirita, the selected fragments in this version are from the play’s conclusion.