China in One Village The Story of One Town and the Changing World

A global future in the history of a single village

After a decade away from her ancestral family village, during which she became a writer and literary scholar in Beijing, Liang Hong started visiting her rural hometown in landlocked Henan Province. What she found was an extended family riven by the seismic changes in Chinese society and a village turned inside out by emigration, neglect, and environmental despoliation. Combining family memoir, literary observation, and social commentary, Liang’s by turns lyrically poetic and movingly raw investigation into the fate of her village became a bestselling book in China and brought her fame.

For many months, Liang walked the roads and fields of her village, recording the stories of her relatives—especially her irascible, unforgettable father—and talking to everyone from high government officials to the lowest of village outcasts. Across China, many saw in Liang’s riveting interviews with family members and childhood acquaintances a mirror of their own lives, and her observations about the way the greatest rural-to-urban migration of modern times has twisted the country resonated deeply. China in One Village tells the story of contemporary China through one clear-eyed, literary observer, one family, and one village.

A professor of Chinese literature at Renmin University in Beijing, Liang Hong's literary career has spanned criticism, reportage, and fiction. China In One Village (Zhongguo zai Liangzhuang), sold over a quarter of a million copies. It was followed by Leaving Liang Village, establishing Liang Hong's reputation as a deft observer and chronicler of China's changing society. Since that time Liang Hong has been the recipient of many awards and honors. More recently she has published a collection of short stories and a novel.