By John Derbyshire, NR contributing editor unch on Wednesday with two Chinese visitors, one of them a senior editor at a mainland-Chinese newspaper. Before moving up to the editorial page, Wu Ming was the books editor of the newspaper, which has a heavily intellectual readership. My main interest in talking to him was therefore to ascertain the current state of Chinese literature. Nobody has time for literature any more.
People are too busy trying to make money.
The only books that really sell in China are textbooks, especially anything to do with computers. I asked, having just finished reviewing four English translations of Chinese poems. No, he didn't know of any such work going on. Nobody could make money doing such a thing. Having thus disposed of my principal inquiry, and the food not yet arrived, we rambled off into a general discussion of social, cultural, and political topics.