One of the earliest Chinese writer to travel to China's interior and document his experiences and observations, especially about China's minority groups. Ma Jian ranks alongside Gao Xingjian, Nobel Prize (Literature) winning author of the seminal novel Soul Mountain. 马建之路 is Ma's travel notes gathered during his wandering days more than 20 years ago which saw him traverse over mountains in the south and across plateaus in the interior west. He went as far as Hainan island in the south and Xinjiang region in the northwest. What clearly moved him was the sheer poverty and simplicity of the ordinary folks he encountered, notably the minority groups who were among the most underprivileged people he had seen so far in China. I wonder how much of that has changed since.
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