Wuhan Diary Dispatches from a Quarantined City

I've read this 1 year after Fang Fang started her Wuhan Diary in February 2020, documenting Wuhan's journey through quarantine while battling the outbreak of the Coronavirus. Occasionally it felt like I was reading this either too early (because we're still very much in the middle of it and lack distance) or too late (as some of her gravitas now feels off, as we know how high the worldwide victim counts have risen).

The beginning is especially haunting, as it reads like the beginning of an dystopian novel where a diary from before an apocalypse is recovered, with ominous counting of days and “the virus” looming large as the mysterious enemy. Then it becomes a study of quarantine life, a portrait of a country and culture that refuses to acknowledge mistakes, and a tale of online trolls and internet censorship.

Fang Fang posts her diary entries each day on her Chinese social media account. As she acts as a national conscience and demands accountability, her diary collects more and more fans, and subsequently the the government starts to take down her posts.