Red Dust was about the late 1980s; it was a time of burgeoning hopes and opening up and people searching for new ways.

When history is erased, people's moral values are also erased.

In February of this year I returned to China to research my next book. The authorities know about the novels of mine that have been published in the west, including the latest one, Beijing Coma, about a student shot in Tiananmen Square, but so far have allowed me to return.

My hope is that the Chinese government will come to realise that it is futile to repress free speech, and that contrary to what they believe a regime's strength rests not its suppression of a plurality of opinions and ideas, but in its capacity and willingness to encourage them.

Tyrannies not only want to control your mind and thoughts but your flesh as well.

I believe that the power of literature is stronger than the power of tyranny.

Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will belies waiting on the road ahead.