Red Dust

In 1983, Ma Jian turned 30 and was overwhelmed by the desire to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. Deng Xiaoping was clamping down on 'Spiritual Pollution'; young people were rebelling. With his long hair, jeans and artistic friends, Ma Jian was under surveillance. One day he bought a train ticket to the westernmost border of China and set off in search of himself.
The result is a compelling and utterly unique insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both an insider and an outsider in his own country could have written.
‘Honest, raw, insightful... The Chinese equivalent of On the Road’ TIME