Ma Jian wrote The Noodle Maker in 1990, four years after he left China for Hong Kong, then still a British colony. When Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997, he left for Europe, living first in Germany, and later moving to London. Red Dust, the English translation of his memoir about three years' wandering in remote parts of China, was published in 2001. On the back of Red Dust, Ma Jian is described as a 'dissident artist'. In a recent interview in the Observer, Ma was again called an 'acclaimed dissident'. Like the first Chinese Nobel laureate in literature, Gao Xingjian, who is routinely labelled 'a veteran exiled Chinese dissident novelist and playwright', Ma belongs to a group of Chinese writers living abroad who express anti-Communist opinions. Most of them are now in exile by choice - Ma is free to travel to China - but their political identity is intimately connected to their writing. Many, though not all, are activists who lend their voices to political organisations. 'Dissidence' has an obvious appeal, but is Ma's writing any good?

LRB 8 July 2004 | PDF Download