How can you be an artist when censorship kills creativity? Or live in a regime that fears the inner world of the creative mind?

From Communist one-party rule to the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution and 1989’s Tiananmen Square protests, Madeleine Thien’s thrilling Man Booker-shortlisted Do Not Say We Have Nothing brings the gruelling tyranny of Mao Zedong’s brutal regime to life; while Chinese- British novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo’s startling new memoir Once Upon A Time In The East has been described as picking up where Jung Chang’s 1991 best-seller Wild Swans left off.

The event is chaired by Isabella Jackson, Assistant Professor of Chinese History at Trinity College Dublin.