The Dark Road

Unforgettable – Stephen Abell * Sunday Telegraph *
The Dark Road follows the river-borne escape of fugitives from the one-child policy. An ill-matched couple’s flight along anarchic backwaters leads them into a raw, brutal, brilliantly depicted boom-time underworld – Boyd Tonkin * Independent *
[Ma Jian’s] characterization is superb… A devastating critique of China’s oppressive communist regime * Mail on Sunday *
A writer of rare orgininality… All of Ma’s skill and playfulness are on display as the novel builds to a climax in which Meili is forced to question her very right to exist in this fragile, ever-changing new world – Tash Aw * Guardian *
One of China’s most prominent dissident voices addresses the bleak effects of the one-child policy in this striking novel, in which the brutality of social engineering is made graphically plain. Ma Jian’s work is banned in China; this unflinching portrait of one woman’s struggle against oppression makes it sadly easy to understand why * New Statesman *
Ma’s work is a vital corrective and he writes here with insistent, focused anger – Siobhan Murphy * Metro *
Ma Jian is a writer of rare originality whose work effortlessly combines a sense of the avant garde with uncomfortable humour, underpinned at all times by rage at the social changes that have affected China over the last 30 years – Tash Aw * Guardian *

Ma Jian was born in Qingdao, China. He is the author of seven novels, a travel memoir, three story collections and two essay collections. He has been translated into twenty-six languages. Since the publication of his first book in 1987, all his work has been banned in China. He now lives in exile in London

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