Viva is excited to be launching our Inspiring Women Series at the start of the year of Rooster.

We are thrilled to have Zhang Lijia, a Chinese writer, columnist, social commentator and public speaker as our very first guest speaker to launch the Inspiring Women Series. Lijia will share her newest publicationLotus, which is already receiving rave reviews.

“Lotus is a wonderfully readable and perceptive novel about an aspect of China that remains largely invisible to the outside world. Although it pulls no punches, it is saturated with the spirit of stoic optimism that sustains millions of migrants around the world. ”—Amitav Ghosh, author of the best selling Ibis trilogy and the Man Booker Prize Finalist Sea of Poppies

Event Details

Date: Feb.22, 2017

Time: 18:30 - 21:30

Venue: Four Seasons Hotel (Liangmaqiao)

Price: Memeber 180 RMB, Nonmember 220 RMB

Registration: Register via Wechat,ID:viva_beijing

Lijia was born into a poor working-class family in Nanjing and grew up in a workers’ residential compound. Winning several writing competitions at a young age sparked her ambition to become a journalist and writer. At 16,however, she had to leave school and go to work in a rocket factory to bring money into the family. She spent ten tedious years there. As an escape route,she taught herself English, which deepened her interest in literature. She started to write poems, essays and short stories, some of which were published in literary journals.

Her memoir “Socialism is Great!” A Worker’s Memoir of New China was published in hardback by Atlas & Co. in New York (2008) and then in paperback by Random House (2009). It has been translated into five languages and published in eight territories around the world. It met with wide critical acclaim. Renowned Sinologist Jonathan Spence describes it as "a sharply observant and admirably crafted memoir".

Lijia is a regular speaker and lecturer on China's social issues and she has been featured on the BBC, Channel 4 and Skynews in the UK, and CNN, NBC and National Public Radio in the US. She has lectured at many conferences, institutions and universities around the world, including Asia EU Economic Forum, European Institute for Asian Studies,The University of Sydney, Harvard, Stanford and New York University.

In 2004, she obtained an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2009, sponsored by the US State Department, she was granted a fellowship in the prestigious International Writer's Program at the University of Iowa.