''Wuhan Diary'' () is an
online diary written by Chinese writer
Fang Fang about the life of the people of
Wuhan, China during the
Wuhan lockdown during efforts to quarantine the center of an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and stop it spreading. An English translation of the diary, titled ''Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City'', was published in book format by
HarperCollins in June 2020.
Background
During the
2020 Hubei lockdowns
On 23 January 2020, the central government of China imposed a lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei in an effort to quarantine the center of an outbreak of COVID-19; this action was commonly referred to as the Wuhan lockdown (). The Worl ...
, her ''Wuhan Diary'' (), the daily account of the locked down city's posted on social media, was widely made public. However, each post was quickly deleted by censors. Fang Fang's
Weibo Weibo may refer to:
* Microblogging in China, or China-based microblogging services (), including:
** NetEase Weibo (), launched by NetEase
** People's Weibo (), launched by ''People's Daily''
** Phoenix Weibo (), launched by Phoenix Television
** W ...
account, which had more than 3.8 million followers, was shut down in February. It was later reinstated. Fang Fang started the diary on 25 January 2020, two days after Wuhan was locked down. She published her 60th and what she called her final entry shortly after midnight on 25 March 2020, hours after the authorities announced that Wuhan's lockdown would end on 8 April. Fang wrote her diary from her house in Wuhan's
Wuchang District, where she lives alone.
An English translation, titled ''Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City'', translated by Michael Berry, was published in book format by
HarperCollins in June 2020. Berry has received angry and death threat emails for translating the diary.
Michael Berry, who started translating “Wuhan Diary” into English beginning in February 2020 said that he translated the book in order for “the world to learn from China’s experience in Wuhan”.
[ The German version was translated by Michael Kahn-Ackermann, and was published by Hoffmann und Campe Verlag on May 30,2020.
In her ''Wuhan Diary'', Fang Fang has called for an end of the ]Internet censorship in China
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China (PRC) affects both publishing and viewing online material. Many controversial events are censored from news coverage, preventing many Chinese citizens from knowing about the actions of th ...
: "Dear internet censors, you should let Wuhan people speak".
See also
* Fang Fang
* Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market
References
{{COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China
2020 in China
2020 non-fiction books
Books about Wuhan
Chinese blogs
Diaries
Internet censorship in China
Books about the COVID-19 pandemic