ABSTRACT
Xinran is a journalist who writes prolifi cally, sensitively and candidly about the country in which she grew up. As she points out in the interview, her work is now published in more than 30 languages. Her personal situation, as a writer conversant with western attitudes and styles, yet deeply grounded in Chinese culture and social networks, enables her to speak to Chinese people sympathetically and to Westerners clearly. Her explorations of Chinese life through personal interviews show us a China that many Chinese are not familiar with, let alone foreigners. Her interviewees come from all walks of life and all areas of China. They have moving, sometimes tragic stories to tell which give us a very different picture from that presented by the Chinese authorities. Gone are the antiseptic, abstract ideals; instead the reader is confronted by a very real, physical China involving ordinary people.
