On May 12, 2008, when the Great Sichuan Earthquake struck, writer Liao Yiwu began to write "Chronicle of the Great Earthquake", which was serialized in <i>Democratic China</i> and reprinted on several Chinese websites. It had a wide impact. Liao went to Dujiangyan, Juyuan Township, Yingxiu and other earthquake-hit areas to conduct on-the-spot interviews. His travels and writings during the earthquake were reported and translated by many mainstream media.
In April 2009, Taiwan's Asian Culture Publishing published and distributed the traditional Chinese edition of <i>Earthquake Insane Asylum</i>, a pictorial and textual factual record that preserves the living conditions of the people during of the Sichuan earthquake.
"Life and Death In Shanghai" (also known as "Shen Jiang Meng Hui") is an autobiography by female writer Zheng Nian. First published in English in 1986, it was subsequently translated into various languages and published in various countries. In the book, Zheng Nian recounts her personal experiences from the beginning of the Cultural Revolution to her departure from China in the early 1980s. After her release from prison in 1973, she learned that, shortly after her imprisonment, her only daughter, Zheng Meiping, had been persecuted and had died. She then tried to find out the cause of her daughter's death. The book traces how the ideals of intellectuals were crushed by politics.
Land reform is one of the important events that affected the course of Chinese history in the twentieth century. Liao Yiwu spent two years on and off from the end of 2005 to complete <i>The Last Landlord</i>. The book comprises interviews with land reform survivors. As the author says, "Based on the degree of physical and mental weakening of the interviewees, I estimate that in another five or six years, the history of the land reform as orally told by those who witnessed it will be completely untraceable."
