Fang Fang, the author of the “Fang Fang’s Diary” that recorded the epidemic during the outbreak in Wuhan City, has been missing from the list of the presidium of a recent nationwide congress of the Chinese Writers’ Association (CWA).
Fang, born in Wuhan, is a member of CWA and was once on its national committee, the association’s governing body. CWA is a government affiliated organization that the Chinese Communist Party uses to control Chinese writers.
After the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan from late 2019 to early 2020, Fang wrote daily from January 25 to March 25, 2020, detailing her observations and personal reflections during the city’s closure. The diary was once an important source of information about the development of the epidemic in Wuhan, as it was closer to the truth than the official media reports.
During the publication of her diary, public and private pressure were already mounting against her. In April of 2020, after the announcement that her diary would be published overseas, she immediately became the target of nationwide criticism from pro-Beijing forces.
In an interview with foreign media, Fang did not back down in the face of pressure. She said that she had been ostracized by the Chinese authorities and the literary community, and that her literary career had changed forever. This was the first time she had encountered such a situation since she started her literary career in 1982. Fang believed that this shows that “far-left nationalism” is deeply rooted in China, especially in the minds of government officials.
In addition to Fang Fang, another famous Chinese writer Zhang Kangkang, who once supported Fang during the incident, was also excluded from the list of the presidium of CWA.
Source: Central News Agency, December 16, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202112160295.aspx