Melville House Books

One of the hottest books in China right now is available only through the black market, although “bootleg copies are on sale everywhere”: China’s Peasants: A Survey has “proved so controversial,” reports Richard Spencer in a Daily Telegraph story, “that it was banned by the Communist authorities just a month after publication.” According to Spencer, the book, by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao, a husband and wife team, “chronicles official abuse, corruption and violence in their home province, Anhui, and has cast a harsh light on rural life in China” that has resonated with millions of other peasants.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.