'The setting of Between the lines is China soon after the Cultural Revolution. The first part focuses on Jiangsu province, with letters sent in 1980-81. The reader learns of the arrival of television, the trial of the Gang of Four, neighbourhood committees, and population control. Xinjiang journaling takes up the second part of the book, the most political, with commentary on the current Uyghur situation. Here the title is most apt, with observations and questions from the writer leaving the reader asking for more analysis. A red thread of poetry links different historical elements together dynasties, modern revolutionary poetry, and poetry opposing what went before or what silences culture.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
