This volume gathers personal reflections on life and literature by 44 of China's leading authors. It aims to illustrate how Chinese society and its creative writing have supported, competed and fought with each other for the past 40 years and more. Much of what is revealed here is mundane, but the pressure of bringing art to social and political causes, indeed the universal pressure to survive, forges this collection into a very human document. The strengths and weaknesses of these essays offer a window on those of modern Chinese literature itself. Realism was the favoured literary doctrine of the day, and, reflecting this, most of these essays speak for themselves - about war, revolution, betrayal and commitment.

馬漢茂（Helmut Martin）（ 1940.3.5～1999.6.8）德國人，本名海爾默特·馬丁。1960年代到颱灣讀碩士。他在中國大陸以及香港和颱灣報刊上用中文發錶的論文，都署“馬漢茂”。他是國際漢學界的著名人士，與中國文學界有著廣泛的聯係。他在聯邦德國從事中國當代文學的研究工作，組織翻譯瞭許多中國當代文學作品。他曾在聯邦德國科隆市，主持召開瞭“中國新時期文學討論會”。在他的倡導推動下，擴大瞭中國當代文學在聯邦德國的影響。

金介甫（Jeffrey C.Kinkley），1948年齣生，美國漢學傢，現為美國紐約聖若望大學曆史係教授。1972年開始研究瀋從文，在文學史的序列中，金介甫第一個給瀋從文以文以明確的崇高地位。被譽為國外瀋從文研究第一人。1977年以《瀋從文筆下的中國》獲得哈佛大學博士學位。