Want to know what books Ma Jian recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Ma Jian's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as "the three years of natural disaster."
As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes... more An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as "the three years of natural disaster."
As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes responsibility for the deaths to China's totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest. less 
Ma JianIt’s a very thick book. My first impression of Tombstone was that it really surprised me, in a good way. We all know that in the sixties, during the Mao era, there was a terrifying period of the Great Famine. That was a secret for a long time, which no-one revealed. But with this book, we can now read extensive evidence of it. Of course, Yang Jisheng isn’t a literary writer, he’s a historian. He... (Source)
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2
One Man's Bible is the second novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Gao Xingjian to appear in English. Following on the heels of his highly praised Soul Mountain, this later work is as candid as the first, and written with the same grace and beauty.
In a Hong Kong hotel room in 1996, Gao Xingjian's lover, Marguerite, stirs up his memories of childhood and early adult life under the shadow of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Gao has been living in self-imposed exile in France and has traveled to this Western-influenced Chinese city-state, so close to his... more One Man's Bible is the second novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Gao Xingjian to appear in English. Following on the heels of his highly praised Soul Mountain, this later work is as candid as the first, and written with the same grace and beauty.
In a Hong Kong hotel room in 1996, Gao Xingjian's lover, Marguerite, stirs up his memories of childhood and early adult life under the shadow of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Gao has been living in self-imposed exile in France and has traveled to this Western-influenced Chinese city-state, so close to his homeland, for the staging of one of his plays.
What follows is a fictionalized account of Gao Xingjian's life under the Communist regime. Whether in "beehive" offices in Beijing or in isolated rural towns, daily life is riddled with paranoia and fear, as revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, reactionaries, counterreactionaries, and government propaganda turn citizens against one another. It is a place where a single sentence spoken ten years earlier can make one an enemy of the state. Gao evokes the spiritual torture of political and intellectual repression in graphic detail, including the heartbreaking betrayals he suffers in his relationships with women and men alike.
One Man's Bible is a profound meditation on the essence of writing, on exile, on the effects of political oppression on the human spirit, and on how the human spirit can triumph. less Ma JianGao Xingjian finished One Man’s Bible in the nineties, in Hong Kong. We talked continuously while he was writing it. In this novel, we read about how an average man experienced the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution had a huge impact on Gao Xingjian, and it’s an experience which speaks to many people in China. By reading One Man’s Bible, anyone can empathise with that experience. He... (Source)
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3
Lo Kuan-Chung, C. H. Brewitt-Taylor, Robert E. Hegel | 4.25
Ma JianThe Romance of the Three Kingdoms only became a book a thousand years after the events which it describes. You could say that its story is the story of all China, passed down from father to son. It is one of China’s four great classical novels, which also include the Journey to the West. But only with Romance of the Three Kingdoms did old Chinese stories really become Chinese literature. It’s... (Source)
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4
This anthology was first compiled in the second century AD. Its poems, originating from the state of Chu and rooted in Shamanism, are grouped under 17 titles. The earliest poems were composed in the 4th century BC and almost half of them are traditionally ascribed to Qu Yuan. In his introduction to this edition, David Hawkes provides a discussion of the history of these poems and their context, styles and themes. more This anthology was first compiled in the second century AD. Its poems, originating from the state of Chu and rooted in Shamanism, are grouped under 17 titles. The earliest poems were composed in the 4th century BC and almost half of them are traditionally ascribed to Qu Yuan. In his introduction to this edition, David Hawkes provides a discussion of the history of these poems and their context, styles and themes. less Ma JianFrom my perspective, because I prefer to combine literature with history myself, Qu Yuan’s The Lament was an obvious first choice. If we’re talking about Chinese literature, we must wonder where it all began. Except for The Book of Songs [the earliest collection of ancient Chinese poems], The Lament is the earliest pinnacle of Chinese literature. I don’t know what it’s like in English... (Source)
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5
Lu Xun (1881—1936) is one of the founding figures of modern Chinese literature. His celebrated short stories assemble a powerfully unsettling portrait of the superstition, poverty, and complacence that he perceived in late-imperial China, and in the revolutionary Republic that toppled the last dynasty in 1911. This volume presents Lu Xun's complete fiction, including 'The Real Story of Ah-Q,' 'Diary of a Madman,' 'The Divorce,' and 'New Year's Sacrifice,' among others.
Julia Lovell's new translation of Lu Xun's short stories is accompanied by an introduction to the writer's... more Lu Xun (1881—1936) is one of the founding figures of modern Chinese literature. His celebrated short stories assemble a powerfully unsettling portrait of the superstition, poverty, and complacence that he perceived in late-imperial China, and in the revolutionary Republic that toppled the last dynasty in 1911. This volume presents Lu Xun's complete fiction, including 'The Real Story of Ah-Q,' 'Diary of a Madman,' 'The Divorce,' and 'New Year's Sacrifice,' among others.
Julia Lovell's new translation of Lu Xun's short stories is accompanied by an introduction to the writer's political and literary life. This edition also includes suggested further reading, a note on Chinese names and pronunciation, a chronology, and notes. less 
Rana MitterLu Xun should be known to a wide range of readers overseas for two reasons. One – in a sense the more boring reason – is that he is politically very important. He’s always been brought up by the Communist Party as being the single most important writer of the 20th century in China. That’s partly because his message is about how China needed to radically reject its past associated with the... (Source)
Ma JianThis story is very famous, and also very short. Lu Xun didn’t write much in his life, and wrote both journalism and essays in newspapers, and literature. He was very outspoken in both. If a writer loses his criticism of society, I think that he is afraid to write about the truth. From reading Lu Xun, we can discover how authors must maintain a critical perspective. (Source)
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