I meant that the Chinese people are not aware of their own entrapment. They believe they live in a free society, but don't realize how much they are being monitored and controlled, how much the information they receive is restricted and warped, until they step out of line, that is, and feel the heavy hand of the state fall on them.

I left Beijing in 1987, shortly before my books were banned there, but have returned continually.

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

It is vitally important for me, both personally and for my writing, to be able to return to China freely, so being barred entry has caused me deep concern and distress.

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

The Chinese people have been forced to forget the Tiananmen massacre. There has been no public debate about the event, no official apology. The media aren't allowed to mention it. Still today people are being persecuted and imprisoned for disseminating information about it.

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