The Phoenix Years

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The transformation of modern China told through the eyes of its dissident artists and writers. The Phoenix Years tells the riveting story of China's rise from economic ruin to global giant in the four decades after the country started opening to the world in 1978. The book brings the story to life by counterpointing the remarkable narrative of economic and political change with the one running beneath the surface - the story of China's emerging avant-garde, a semi-secret world of artists dreaming of freedom, including pioneers of the earliest days, edgy new players, members of China's troubled ethnic minorities, and a giant of the China art boom whose paintings grace museums in every Western capital...By following the personal stories of nine revolutionary artists of different ages and backgrounds, The Phoenix Years shows how China's rise unleashed people's imaginations, thwarted their hopes and set off a struggle for self-expression that continues to this day. It relates the amazing years of self-discovery and hope in the 1980s, which ended in the disaster of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The story after 1989 is of China's meteoric economic rise, of the opportunities that emerged and the difficult compromises people have to make to be a citizen in modern China...Journalist and foreign correspondent Madeleine O'Dea has been an eyewitness to the rise of China, the explosion of its contemporary art and cultural scene, and its citizens' long struggle for free expression for over 30 years. A long-time resident of China, and on intimate terms with key players, many of whom are now huge international stars, she is the perfect person to write this important and fascinating book. At once an accessible history of China as well as a chronicle of decades of courageous political resistance and cultural activism, The Phoenix Years is vital reading for anyone interested in China today.

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