Nick Holdstock

I began burning books during my third year in China. The first book I burned was called A Swedish Gospel Singer. On the cover there was a drawing of a blonde girl wearing a crucifix with her mouth wide open and musical notes floating out of it. Inside was a story, written in simple English, about a Swedish girl who loved to sing. One day, passing a church, she heard a wonderful sound. When...

This is what we know for sure: on 5 July violence broke out in the northwestern Chinese city of Ürümqi, the provincial capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Cars and buses were set on fire. News reports showed footage of rioters beating and kicking people. We saw a four-year-old boy, his head bandaged, on a hospital trolley. He had been clinging to his pregnant...