Chan Koonchung is a Beijing-based public intellectual and a well-known figure in the wider Chinese media, as a writer, editor, publisher, film producer, and co-founder of Hong Kong's leading lifestyle magazine. His novel The Fat Years is a dystopian critique of modern China set in 2013. It's an astute take on the effects of Chinese politics in everyday life ... what one critic describes as "the struggle over the soul of a nation."

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Music to close the show:

CD:  DIM SUM/YING QUARTET
PERFORMER: Ying Quartet
COMPOSER: Long Zhou
CUT 1: "Song of the Ch'ih"
TELARC CD 80690