Fang Fang

I read Fang Fang’s daily writing during Wuhan’s lockdown. Because of Michael Berry’s excellent translation, Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City has reached readers in English. Fang Fang has been a novelist for over three decades in China. She lives in Wuhan where Covid-19 started. During Wuhan’s lockdown, the author began to write what she felt and knew about the Covid situation in Wuhan and her concern about the people. She started on Jan. 25 and posted her writing online, one piece a day, and finished her 60th piece on March 23. Her writing helped people in Wuhan and also over China to learn about how the deadly virus affected people and how the lockdown impacted the people’s daily life. However, Fang Fang received attacks of cyber-nationalism. When the news about her writing that would be translated and published in English came out, she was called a traitor; the translator also went through that ridiculous online backlash. I admire Fang Fang’s conscience and bravery and Berry’s great sense of humanity.… (mehr)