In the High-Qing Era of ‘literary inquisition’ - also known as 'speech crime' – storytelling was a delicate balance in which writers had to be as implicit as they could in order to avoid censorship. Xun Liu, a freelance literary and academic translator and PhD candidate in the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies, explores the unique narrative styles employed by C18th writers, and the socio-political and cultural background of this fascinating era.

Compass: Story Or Speech Crime? Storytelling In Eighteenth Century China