The true story of a village's literary transformation

In the 1950s, Zhou Libo (1908-79) wrote Shanxiang Jubian (Great Changes to Mountain Areas), a novel portraying the way the country's resolution on agricultural cooperatives boosted food production in a small village named Qingxi.

This book contains detailed, vivid rural-life scenes and vibrant character portraits. It uses dialect and colloquial language to evoke the colorful atmosphere of countryside culture. It draws upon Zhou's actual experiences doing farmwork during his stay in Qingxi village in Hunan province's Yiyang city, and has become one of his representative works.

While Zhou's writing captured the social landscape of Qingxi village in the 1950s, more than 60 years later, the power of literature has truly spread its wings as Qingxi has undergone a remarkable transformation as part of the country's rural vitalization drive.