Wuhan Diary

From one of China's most acclaimed and decorated writers comes a powerful first-person account of life in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak and the toll of this deadly calamity on families and individual lives.
On January 25, 2020, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary to help herself and others understand what was happening in Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. Deeply personal and informative, her posts reveal in real-time the widespread impact of the virus and the government's mandatory quarantine on the city's residents. Each day, she gives voice to the fears, frustrations, anger, and hope of millions of ordinary Chinese, reflecting on the psychological impact of forced isolation, the role of the internet as both community lifeline and source of misinformation, and most tragically, the lives of neighbors and friends taken by the deadly virus.

In a nation where authorities use technology to closely monitor...