An agenda-changing account of what it means to be young in modern China.

Now in paperback, this is a new account of what it means to be young in modern China. Born after Mao, with no memory of Tiananmen, this generation of more than 320 million people are destined to transform their nation and the world.

Alec Ash's storytelling gift in Wish Lanterns: Young lives in new China is essentially a novelist's. Vivid character portraits such as rockstar wannabe Lucifer, Mia the media diva or Snail the country mouse trying not to be a total loser in the urban minefield are drawn with a humane understanding of some tricky balancing acts achieved between aspiration and compromise, as these "one-child policy" millennials come of age