From Reuters, via Boston.com (link):
You might have expected a throng of local fans when a well-regarded Chinese author spoke at a Shanghai literary festival in March, but Ma Jian‘s audience, like his readership, had only a handful of Chinese mainlanders.
China-born Ma, whose translator-wife and passport are both British, is barely known in his native land, and dissident voices like his are winning ever less sympathy from mainland readers.
“I hadn’t heard of him before, and it was only when I read about him on the Internet that I realized he was famous. But he seems quite an angry man,” said one Chinese literature graduate attending the festival, who declined to be identified.