When six-year-old Taotao is sent by her mother to live with her grandparents, her whole world seems to have fallen apart. Only in later years does she learn of her mother's secret pain - her own father's fall from grace in the Cultural Revolution - and come to understand the sacrifice she has made for her daughter. STARTLING MOON looks back to a past of rich but suppressed tradition, and forward to a very different China. Above all, it is the story of Taotao's quest to know her own heart, and of the blossoming of a passion which will lead her to risk all that she holds dear.

Like so many of her young compatriots, Lili Lin lives on the margins of society–she has been jailed for “having a corrupt lifestyle and hooliganism,” and at 24 she is unemployable because she doesn’t have connections and unmarriageable because she isn’t a virgin. Estranged from her parents, restless and cynical, she drifts from day to day. Then she meets an American journalist infatuated with China, who gradually opens her eyes to what is happening. Together they embark on a journey that will profoundly change Lili’s view of her country and of herself.

In the spring of 1989, millions of citizens across China took to the streets in a nationwide uprising against government corruption and authoritarian rule. What began with widespread hope for political reform ended with the People's Liberation Army firing on unarmed citizens in the capital city of Beijing, and those leaders who survived the crackdown became wanted criminals overnight. Among the witnesses to this unprecedented popular movement was Rowena Xiaoqing He, who would later join former student leaders and other exiles in North America, where she has worked tirelessly for over a decade to keep the memory of the Tiananmen Movement alive.
This moving oral history interweaves He's own experiences with the accounts of three student leaders exiled from China. Here, in their own words, they describe their childhoods during Mao's Cultural Revolution, their political activism, the bitter disappointments of 1989, and the profound contradictions and challenges they face as exiles. Variously labeled as heroes, victims, and traitors in the years after Tiananmen, these individuals tell difficult stories of thwarted ideals and disconnection that nonetheless embody the hope for a freer China and a more just world.

這篇小說在六四剛發生不久寫對中國的情結，顯然是非主流的。故事中，香港女大學生葉丹傾慕來自中國的訪問學者于光華，並投身社會運動。今天可能仍有人會藉浪漫與愛情質疑革命的純粹性，其實即使不引用「革命加戀愛」這個長久以來的公式，戀愛不僅不構成革命的雜質，更時有超越與昇華革命的可能。

1989年9月，六四屠城事件發生僅三個月後，小說家高行健於《今天》雜誌上發表了劇本《逃亡》；2001年，劇本集結為中文版並在台灣出版。故事講述1989年6月4日凌晨，三個人逃離廣場，包括一名「早就厭惡這骯髒的政治」的中年人，一名從廣場上逃出來的青年，另一名是即將畢業的戲劇學院的女學生，亦是天安門廣播站的廣播員。三人逃到一個報廢的「活像個地獄」的倉庫裏，共同度過漫長的一夜。由於對這場民主運動的認識的差異，他們展開了思想交鋒，同時，劇中穿插了年輕人向姑娘求愛和姑娘向中年人求歡的愛慾糾葛。

《逃亡》的刊出飽受爭議。1990年，《今天》雜誌在海外復刊時，即有不少針對此劇本的反對聲音，認為純文學雜誌《今天》不應發表政治色彩過濃的作品。然而2000年高行健獲諾貝爾文學獎時，又有聲音認為他的作品背向政治、背向時代，只剩個人內心這個向度，與諾貝爾文學獎的價值標準不符。關於這篇作品，高行健也曾自道：「這是一出政治哲學心理的戲。不宜演成隻反映當前政治事件的那種社會現實主義的戲。」然而劇本的取材與時空背景設定，使其依然在六四後文藝創作的框架中被頻頻提及。

參考資料：
傅正明：「六四」悲劇與高行健的《逃亡》
孔捷生：八十歲的逃亡者——高行健

一九八九年，萬堅在中國北方的山寧大學裡當研究生，某日他的指導教授楊慎民突然中風，與楊教授的女兒梅梅已訂下婚約的他，責無旁貸擔起照顧的責任。不過住院療養的楊教授行徑愈發詭異，時不時吟詩、唱起革命歌曲，大聲對著看不見的人求饒、抗議學校不公……這些究竟是精神崩潰下的胡言亂語，或者當中攙雜著不為人知的真話？

本書主題是六四天安門事件，這是哈金人生的轉捩點。全書以第一人稱書寫，透過主角萬堅毫無矯飾的目光，寫出個人被集體瘋狂包圍並掐住喉頭的苦澀，及其對心靈所造成的巨大的破壞作用。哈金在序文中坦承最難寫的就是天安門事件的那一章，他視之為作家的道德責任。本書至今仍是書寫六四事件最具影響力的一本書，被譽為哈金最震撼也最令人著迷的不凡傑作。
　
「我要寫一部小說，把這些法西斯分子全寫進去。把他們釘在歷史的恥辱柱上。」

最令中共抓狂的一本書。
直視令人窒息的中國共產黨社會以及知識分子所遭受無止盡的妥協和騙局。

從個人對國家的盲目忠誠，寫到天安門廣場血腥鎮壓的凶暴，哈金筆下的萬堅就像卡夫卡小說裡的主角，愈努力愈挫敗。始於個人的瘋狂，結束於集體的瘋狂，《瘋狂》為魯迅筆下四千年來時時「吃人」的中國，在廿世紀後半中共政權為了保持自己的統治，不講道理，殺人如麻的凶暴行徑，留下最具影響力的批判和見證。

真是個瘋子！他讓我既想笑又想哭。
淚眼模糊。

「自從上了回來的火車，我就被一個可怕的幻象折磨著。我看見中國像一個老醜婆，衰朽又瘋狂，竟吞噬兒女來維持自己的生命。她貪得無厭，以前已吃掉許多小生命，現在又大嚼新血肉，將來肯定還要吃下去。我擺脫不了這個恐怖幻象，整天對自己說：「中國是吃自己的崽子的老母狗！」叫我怎能不毛骨悚然，叫我怎能不心驚肉跳！兩夜前的騷動還在我耳旁喧囂不止，我怕我就要瘋了。」

大學生戴偉在1989年被槍擊中，成了昏迷不醒的植物人，一直在回憶中尋找愛情和希望，反省天安門廣場發生的一幕幕。而戴偉的媽媽則度日如年，但當拆遷的推土機迎面撲來時，她崩潰了。

作品揭示了共產黨在全國展開洗腦，禁止人民談論和記憶“六四” 的真相。而戴偉躲在肉牢裡，與極權展開了保存記憶的競爭。在政治恐懼漸漸把大眾變成了植物人的時代，戴偉成了唯一的幸存者。當他將在物欲橫流的社會中蘇醒的剎那，他感到真正的死亡。

A profound mystery is at the heart of this magnificent new novel by Yiyun Li, “one of America’s best young novelists” (Newsweek) and the celebrated author of The Vagrants, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Moving back and forth in time, between America today and China in the 1990s, Kinder Than Solitude is the story of three people whose lives are changed by a murder one of them may have committed. As one of the three observes, “Even the most innocent person, when cornered, is capable of a heartless crime.”
When Moran, Ruyu, and Boyang were young, they were involved in a mysterious “accident” in which a friend of theirs was poisoned. Grown up, the three friends are separated by distance and personal estrangement. Moran and Ruyu live in the United States, Boyang in China; all three are haunted by what really happened in their youth, and by doubt about themselves. In California, Ruyu helps a local woman care for her family and home, and avoids entanglements, as she has done all her life. In Wisconsin, Moran visits her ex-husband, whose kindness once overcame her flight into solitude. In Beijing, Boyang struggles to deal with an inability to love, and with the outcome of what happened among the three friends twenty years ago.
Brilliantly written, a breathtaking page-turner, Kinder Than Solitude resonates with provocative observations about human nature and life. In mesmerizing prose, and with profound insight, Yiyun Li unfolds this remarkable story, even as she explores the impact of personality and the past on the shape of a person’s present and future.

陳冠中的新書《北京零公里》是一部曠世奇書。在一個縱橫古今中外的虛構框架下，作者用真實的歷史敘述，寫作了一部歷史傳奇。

整本書分三部分：內篇、外篇、秘篇。內篇是整本書的主體，外篇和秘篇作為補充，使得整個傳奇故事顯得更加豐富、魔幻怪異。
所謂「北京零公里」，是有事實根據的，具體指的是位於北京市天安門廣場的一個中國公路零公里的標誌。這是全中國所有公路的起點，比如說從北京到香港有一千九百五十九公里，就是從這一點算起的。作者站在這一個實際的零點位置，以一個存於虛無世界的歷史學家的視角，敘述北京城八百年來的歷史、人物、事件。從傳說中劉伯溫建北京四九城，到十四世紀大明皇朝設順天府，大興土木築建紫禁城皇城，成就了現在「北京零公里」這個標誌周圍的核心地帶的北京，再到一六四四年李自城攻佔北京42天，燒毀城樓，隨即幾天之後滿人入京，建立清皇朝，北京重現帝都的輝煌，直至辛亥革命推翻帝制，民國接收清帝國，依然定都於北京，十六年後才遷都南京。當然我們現代人最熟悉的北京是四九年後人民共和國的首都北京。
在上千年的宏大歷史時空中，不同朝代的更替，一般的只有幾十年，長的三四百年，最短的才四十二天，生活在其中的人生壽命也都不過幾十年，舊城變新城，生人變鬼魂，至於什麼是歷史，什麼是歷史真相，無斷累積出來的歷史知識又有什麼用，作者是抱着懷疑態度的。然而正就是這種懷疑精神，使得作者把整本書的敘述，視野一再擴闊，一方面深入探究了傳說中的北京地下城世界，另一方面用一個「外篇」寫北京的「吃」，表面是一部食經，實則寫出北京作為首善之都的掌權者的權力貪婪，最高權力交替的風詭雲譎，以及極權國家秘密操作的恐怖，引人入勝，欲罷不能。­