DRAGONS IN DIAMOND VILLAGE

A stunning work of narrative non-fiction telling one of the most important stories of our time: what is actually happening on the front lines of China’s explosive and unprecedented journey towards urbanization.

In 2009, on the outskirts of the Southern metropolis of Guangzhou, Xian villagers secretly prepared for the Dragon Boat Festival. For them, the commemoration of the 221 B.C. poet Qu Yuan, who threw himself into a river to protest official corruption, had particular resonances.

Guangzhou’s drive to become a “National Model City” ahead of the 2010 Asia Games accelerated a voracious demand for land, turning the ground beneath the villagers’ feet into a commodity as valuable as diamonds, a treasure too rich for local officials to ignore.

Dragons in Diamond Village is about the courage of individuals: Huang Minpeng, a semi-literate farmer turned self-taught rights defender; He Jieling, a suburban housewife who just wanted to open a hair salon; Li Jiaming, who booby-trapped his home with explosives in order to save it from demolition. With others, they form a community bound by shared history and a belief in the necessity of change, a band of unlikely activists fighting for their place in China’s new cities.

David Bandurski is analyst and editor at the University of Hong Kong’s China Media Project. An award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, he received a Human Rights Press Award in 2008 for an investigative piece on China’s use of professional associations to enforce Internet censorship guidelines. He produces Chinese independent films and documentaries through his production company, Lantern Films.