Empty Room

Mu Xin, born in 1927 in China, is among the last of his generation to receive a classical education. During the Cultural Revolution he was imprisoned for eighteen months and then lived under house arrest for several years. In 1982 he moved to the U.S., where he lived in Queens, New York, and only recently moved back to his hometown in China. He is the author of several collections of stories, poetry, and essays, as well as being a world-renowned painter. Toming Jun Liu is a professor of English at California State University, Los Angeles.

"Mu Xin is best known as a writer and not a painter. He sustains theChinese mode of returning to the art of the past and refreshing it for thepresent. He came to the United States in 1982, has written a dozenbooks here, and is a literary cult figure in Taiwan and among intellectualsin the Chinese diaspora."