The edict came down from above as much as a decade ago; we should all read more. And that the Chinese populace appears to be doing, judging by the turnout for a book fair which packed a punch these past few days in Suzhou.
The 15th Jiangsu Book Fair came to a close yesterday, 15 July, 2025, after a 5-day exposition of all kinds of literature, held at the Suzhou Expo Centre. No need for directions; follow the crowd from the Metro. From the get go, it was packed.
With our nation’s esteemed leader garnering centre stage at the entrance to the Fair, flanked by his publications, one could not help but first wonder in admiration; “How does he have time to write so many books?”.
Such a diversion aside, as most skirted the paramount’s offering to delve deeper into the world of literature, it was the large section devoted to English books which grabbed this correspondent’s attention, not only for its language of publication, but for the scale and variety of titles, and, most importantly, the fact that those in attendance were exhibiting a non-stop kind of interest in such.
Until now perhaps, English books in China have had a bad rap. Locked somewhere between mostly the 19th and 20th Centuries, with “Jane Eyre”, “Great Expectations” and “Hamlet” as staples, “1984” is about as exciting as it ever got, until the censors presumably cottoned on to what it is really about.
But this time around in Suzhou was altogether different, with the biggest variety of English books in one place this correspondent has every seen during his entire 32 years in China.
Hence it was a joy to find on the shelves of the Suzhou Expo Centre a copy of British comedian Stephen Fry’s latest, “Mythos”, or “Titan; the Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.” by Pulitzer Prize winning Ron Chernow. Likewise for an extensive section dedicated entirely to design, in which could be found “China’s Hidden Century 1796-1912” out of the British Museum, “Soviet Bus Stops” and a tomb devoted to the work of HR Giger, by the Swiss surrealist painter and designer of the Oscar winning “Alien” himself.
Rounding it all off, arguably the biggest English dictionary there has ever been produced (Collins’ “CoBuild; Advanced Learners’ Dictionary 10th Edition”) and an equally-weighty tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II (“Her Majesty; A Photographic History 1926-2022).
All in, it was an impressive collection of English works, and an encouraging one to see, given the increasingly polarised and geopolitical tensions prevalent today, showing that, outwardly at least, China is living up to its claims to be continually opening up to the outside world.
China has in fact an extremely good track record of improving literacy rates, at least since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Prior to this, average-adult literacy for male and female combined stood somewhere between 20 and 30 percent, and was even as low as 10 percent as the 20th Century dawned.
When new China took hold, the People’s Republic initiated widespread literacy programs, in effect the precursors to that we have seen over the past 10 years. As Language magazine has reported, the result was that by 1964, literacy rates among those aged 12-40 had increased from 20 percent to 57 percent.
By 1982, the percent of those in the general population able to read had climbed to over 65 percent, with steady increases continuing ever since. A 90-percent literacy rate in 2000 was followed by one of 95 percent a decade later. Statistica’s latest reports show a 2020 average-literacy rate for China of 97.15 percent.