literature

Is China’s Most Famous Modern Play Stuck in the Past?

Contributions from individuals with unique perspectives to share. Hear from everyone, from experts and commentators to those whose voices are often marginalized.

VOICES & OPINION

The 1958 staging of Lao She’s “Teahouse” is a certified classic. Can anyone improve upon it?

Liu Qing

Will This Short Story Rewrite the History of Chinese Sci-Fi?

Published in Singapore in 1898, the anonymously written, long-forgotten “The Travels of Chang Ching Chong: An Autobiography” may be the earliest example of Chinese science fiction.

Feng Zhang

Emotional Labor: Life Inside a Chinese Orphanage

Translations, cross-publications, and collaborative projects from Sixth Tone’s external partners. 

SIXTH TONE ×

A new book explores the tears, fears, and cheers experienced by orphanage staff and the children they care for.

Qian Linliang

Do Sci-Fi Authors Dream of Electric Daoism?

What draws some of the world’s top sci-fi authors to the “Dao De Jing”?

Emily Xueni Jin

The Passion of Chiung Yao

Chiung, who died last week at 86, was China’s most famous romance novelist. But what does her work mean in an era where young people seem uninterested in being swept off their feet?

Wu Haiyun

Chiung Yao, Iconic Author of Romance and Drama, Dies at 86

Visual stories that get up close and personal with contemporary China. A mix of short videos, documentaries, photography, and data visualization.

MULTIMEDIA

A prolific author and screenwriter, she shaped Chinese-language literature and cinema with her tales of love, loss, and forbidden relationships.

Sixth Tone

The Poet Changing China’s View of Disability — Through Dance

Timely reports on issues and events from across China. Drawing on a vast range of sources, these succinct articles provide insights into the significance of each issue in a wider context.

NEWS

Yu Xiuhua became a sensation with her raunchy poetry that redefined Chinese perceptions of disability. Now, she’s taking her art a step further.

Jiang Xinyi

Hope in Hardship: How an Illiterate Woman ‘Wrote’ Her Memoir

A survivor of human trafficking from southwestern China shares how she became an “authentic voice” in literature using her phone’s voice-to-text function.

The Paper

Hu Anyan and the Beauty of ‘Ordinary Things’ as a Refuge From Reality

Reflecting on his journey from odd jobs to literary success, author Hu Anyan emphasizes the value of the everyday and banal in his new book “Living in Low Places.”

Hu Anyan

As Shanghai Book Fair Turns 20, Tech and Tradition Converge

The weeklong event attracted nearly 400,000 visitors to the Shanghai Exhibition Center, showcasing over 160,000 titles from 360 publishers.

Fan Yiying

Literati Labor: Life Among the Working-Class Writers of Picun

In his new book, writer and former journalist Yuan Ling recounts his immersion into the culture and conversations of a vibrant literary community for migrant workers in Beijing.

Yuan Ling

Pema Tseden’s Other Legacy

The Tibetan filmmaker was also a prolific writer of short stories.

Cai Xin

Steering Through Shanghai: A Taxi Driver’s Perspective

​​An outsider’s perspective reveals the hidden facets of Shanghai’s taxi culture.

Li Enjie

The ‘Santi’ Aren’t Real

Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” translated Liu Cixin’s epic to the small screen — with one notable exception.

Big City Dreams, Small-Town Realities for China’s Rural Youth

As more rural youth return to their hometowns due to employment, family, or big city life pressure, small cities are serving as a buffer zone between their dreams and reality.

Wang Defu

Does China Still Need Libraries? 

Your questions, answered. In-depth interviews with the minds and makers shaping today’s China.

Q & A

To stay relevant in contemporary China, libraries must do more than provide the same staid services and instead be spaces for genuine learning and community-building, says professor Yang Suqiu.

Cai Yiwen

High Spirits: The American Pondering Baijiu’s Place in the World

To prepare Western palates, Derek Sandhaus, author of “Drunk in China: Baijiu and the World’s Oldest Drinking Culture” and founder of Ming River Sichuan Baijiu, offers a detailed primer on the spirit’s past, present, and future.

Derek Sandhaus

Aesthetic Evolution: Tracing Female Beauty in Ancient Chinese Art

A museum curator’s new book, “Images of Her in Ancient China,” explores the various ways women have been depicted in art throughout Chinese history.

Cai Qin

In China’s Array of Dialects, Emerging Writers Find a New Voice

While novels in regional dialects aren’t new in China, they have surged in popularity among young writers in recent years, particularly amid increased social media exposure.

Yang Caini

Lin Pingxiu

How ‘Farming Literature’ Became China’s Hottest Genre

Originally a male-dominated genre about territorial consolidation and conquest, farming lit is offering China’s women a fantasy world in which they don’t have to be perfect to succeed.