Program promotes Chinese works to world

Ma Xiaotao

Born in 1982, Ma Xiaotao is the author of five books and editor of the prestigious literary magazine People's Literature. Ma was born into a writers' family, and has strong skills in broadcasting, which was her major at university.

Ma also works for Pathlight, the English-language magazine run by People's Literature. Through her back and forth with the foreign editors in picking proper Chinese writers to be introduced to the English-speaking world, she came to understand that urban stories by Chinese writers do not interest foreign readers. "They prefer pioneering texts, as well as the grass-root stories on things like issuing fake identifications and selling fake medicines," Ma said.