IN STAID OLD CHINA," WRITES BEN Maartman in The Iron Bowl Blues (Fogducker's Press $11.95), "it's not Hu Yu Bang (Communist Party leader until 1987) who counts; bu Hu Yu Know." Teaching English at Suzhou College west of Shanghai, Maartman observed how privileged Communist party members were suppressing the democratic wishes of the majority. As a result the Vancouver-born Maartman has returned home to Errington, B.C. to write his memoirs subtitled "A Prelude to the Beijing Massacre."

[BCBW Autumn 1989]