This piece was first published in the May 7, 2015 issue of
One night in September, three hundred people crowded into the basement auditorium of an office tower in Beijing to hear a discussion between two of China’s most popular writers. One was Liu Yu, a thirty-eight-year-old political scientist and blogger who has written a best seller explaining how American democracy works. Her fans call her “goddess” for her writings and her stylish looks.
But this evening, Liu was just a foil for the other writer: Peter Hessler, a low-key
New Yorker journalist. Based in China until 2007, he later wrote on the American West and now lives in Egypt. Hessler has written three books on China and a collection of essays, all published in the U.S., and been recognized with a MacArthur fellowship.
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