20 Best Chinese Fiction Books of the 20th Century

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

"Time Out Beijing's best Chinese fiction books of all time, as voted for by 24 Chinese literature experts, novelists, literary agents, publishers, editors, critics and journalists for their top book picks from the last 100 years, based on the following criteria:

- Available in English
- Published after 1900
- Written by a Mainland or Greater China-born author.

Read the full lists of what each expert voted for and why each book means so much to them in our judges' section".

This list was originally published in 2015 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.

View: List Grid Table

Rank	Book	Authors	Year	Country	Language
1069	The True Story Of Ah Q	Lu Xun	1922	Chinese	Chinese
2620	To Live	Yu Hua	1993	Chinese	Chinese
1566	Love In A Fallen City	Eileen Chang	1943	Chinese	Chinese
1906	Red Sorghum	Yan Mo	1986	Chinese	Chinese
1622	Fortress Besieged	Qian Zhongshu	1947	Chinese	Chinese
4845	The Last Quarter Of The Moon	Chi Zijian	2005	Chinese	English
1691	Cat Country	Lao She	1932	Chinese	Chinese
281	The Good Earth	Pearl S. Buck	1931	American	English
8323	Dream Of Ding Village	Yan Lianke	2006	Chinese	Chinese
9597	The Noodle Maker	Ma Jian	2004	Chinese	Chinese
8105	Northern Girls	Sheng Keyi	2004	Chinese	Chinese
11306	The Book Of Sins	Chen Xiwo	2014	Chinese	Chinese
2354	Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress	Dai Sijie	2000	Chinese	French
5417	A Dictionary Of Maqiao	Han Shaogong	1996	Chinese	Chinese
1569	Empire of the Sun	J. G. Ballard	1984	British	English
9331	Decoded	Mai Jia	2002	Chinese	Chinese
9694	When Red Is Black	Qiu Xiaolong	2004	Chinese	English
10897	The Man With The Compound Eyes	Wu Ming-yi	2011	Taiwanese	Chinese
8956	The Vagrants	Yiyun Li	2009	American	English
7738	Becoming Madame Mao	Anchee Min	2000	American	English