Ma Jian at Edinburgh International Book Festival

Ma Jian’s criticisms of China’s government led to it placing a blanket ban on all his future books in 1987. He participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and now lives in Europe. Ma’s new novel The Dark Road, researched through extensive travel in remote parts of China in 2008-9, is a magic realist tale exploring the terrible effects of the One Child Policy on Chinese women. In this event, recorded live at the 2013 Edinburgh International Book Festival, he talks to Rosemary Goring about his research, his travels and his new book.