Dongbei renaissance: why stories from China's rust belt captivate the nation

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• 00:00

  The Economist.

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  Dongbei in China's northeast is cold, gritty and forgotten.

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  It's also home to one of China's most important literary movements.

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  Dongbei is a collective term for the northeastern provinces that make up China's Rust Belt,

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  Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.

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  In the Mao era,

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  the region boomed thanks to its giant state owned steel mills and coal mines.

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  But the past 30 years have seen mass layoffs and economic decline.

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  It's been a traumatic time for the region marked by poverty

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  and a sense of lost dignity for many people.

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  And in the last decade,

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  a new generation of Dongbei writers has taken China's fiction scene by storm.

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  Dongbei stories have become popular not only in literature, but also television and film.

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  Chinese readers call it a Dongbei Renaissance.

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  And now some of those stories are getting translated into English as well.

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  I'm David Rennie, the Economist's geopolitics editor,

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  and I'm here with my co-host, Alice Su, our senior China correspondent.

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  This week, we're going to discuss a piece of Dongbei literature.

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  And we ask, why do these stories resonate with so many Chinese readers?

• 01:27

  This is Drum Tower.

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