After the Tiananmen Massacre, I felt compelled not only to continue writing but to actively resist the restrictions placed on freedom of speech. I set up the publishing company in Hong Kong, with offices in Shenzhen in mainland China, and managed to publish works of fiction, philosophy, and politics by unapproved authors.

Ma Jian

To become self-aware, people must be allowed to hear a plurality of opinions and then make up their own minds. They must be allowed to say, write and publish whatever they want. Freedom of expression is the most basic, but fundamental, right. Without it, human beings are reduced to automatons.

Ma Jian

I am trying to persuade my family to spend more time in China. It's no fun to be in exile. I can't even figure out the basic 26 letters, let alone operate, in English. I often feel that although I've found the sky of freedom above my head, I've lost the soil I stand on. I need to be back in my motherland, where I can find inspirations.

Ma Jian

After the Tiananmen Massacre, I felt compelled not only to continue writing but to actively resist the restrictions placed on freedom of speech. I set up the publishing company in Hong Kong, with offices in Shenzhen in mainland China, and managed to publish works of fiction, philosophy, and politics by unapproved authors.

Ma Jian

When history is erased, people's moral values are also erased.

Ma Jian

If you exile a writer, however free the country he is sent to, there will always be a sense of internal constraint.

Ma Jian

'Three Kingdoms' gives you a panoply of different routes; everyone can find their own path. It shows that sometimes the route to fulfilment or success is not the obvious one. You must take twists and turns to achieve a goal.

Ma Jian

The Chinese have made a faustian pact with the government, agreeing to forsake demands for political and intellectual freedom in exchange for more material comfort. They live prosperous lives in which any expression of pain is forbidden.

Ma Jian

The Chinese people have been forced to forget the Tiananmen massacre. There has been no public debate about the event, no official apology. The media aren't allowed to mention it. Still today people are being persecuted and imprisoned for disseminating information about it.

Ma Jian

I left Beijing in the late 1980s to live in Hong Kong because, having been blacklisted by the government, I couldn't publish my works on the mainland.

Ma Jian

When the written and spoken word is censored, the urban landscape becomes a nation's only physical link to the past.

Ma Jian

The Beijing Olympics represent China's grand entrance onto the world stage and confirmation of its new superpower status.

Ma Jian

It is vitally important for me, both personally and for my writing, to be able to return to China freely, so being barred entry has caused me deep concern and distress.

Ma Jian

I believe that the power of literature is stronger than the power of tyranny.

Ma Jian

I believe that the Tibetans should have the right to control their own destinies and decide for themselves whether they want to be part of China or not. But this view isn't shared by most Chinese, or even the leaders of most Western democracies. As long as the Communist Party is in power, there is little hope for Tibet.

Ma Jian

Red Dust was about the late 1980s; it was a time of burgeoning hopes and opening up and people searching for new ways.

Ma Jian

Beijing Coma took me 10 years to finish.

Ma Jian

I have to live within my memories, within my private universe, and continually return to China, the land where my thoughts are locked. This is a very painful kind of existence, this feeling of nowhereness.

Ma Jian

Living in London is like being on a luxury cruise liner.

Ma Jian

My hope is that the Chinese government will come to realise that it is futile to repress free speech, and that contrary to what they believe a regime's strength rests not its suppression of a plurality of opinions and ideas, but in its capacity and willingness to encourage them.

Ma Jian

I am a writer. Being critical is a writer's responsibility.

Ma Jian