From the American Prospect, here is a review of Ma Jian’s novel The Noodle Maker:
The narrative, which is artfully self-conscious, turns around a Sunday dinner between friends whose occupations all but mythically complement one another. The stories told between Sheng (“the professional writer”) and his friend Vlazerim (“the professional blood donor”) are the source material for the writer’s unwritten novel. Aside from the drudgery of writing, a fear of the government’s disapproval shadows him. Given that government reprisal includes but is not limited to loss of job, home, and political standing, an atmosphere of consequence quickens the novel, giving the stories culled from the writer’s immediate surroundings an aura of illicit — albeit fantastic — communiqu√©s.
Here is a Guardian interview with Ma from 2004.
