The full truth of Wuhan lockdown may never be told. But the Wuhan Diary by Fang Fang, China’s well-known dissenter, is the closest the world will come to knowing what happened during the 60-day lockdown in Wuhan.
Each day Fang Fang posted her observations. These posts became a lifeline for a city that was the world’s first epicentre of the spread of the virus. Her entries offers just a peep into the bleakness of being in Wuhan.
“So many people have told me that they could finally get some sleep after reading my entry for the day,’’ she writes. She carried on despite censorship and cyberbullying to chronicle life in the time of corona. More than just a personal memoir—of her concern for her family, her daughter who had never cooked before, her ex-husband who got the common cold which she suspected could be corona—the Wuhan Diaries is certainly one of the most important pieces of COVID-19 literature. Especially, as it comes from China, a country that continues to face the backlash for the spread of the virus, and known for its carefully crafted version of the story.
Wuhan Diary breaks the myth. It allows readers to enter into Wuhan, through the eyes of Fang Fang, and learn the sheer magnitude of the crisis. It also demonstrates that there is more than one China.
Eerily similar to how the lockdown unfolded in India, there was little warning when Wuhan was shut down. Fang Fang writes about a frozen city outside her window. Wuhan, which was once brimming with life, was brought to a grinding halt. She writes about desperation—of doctors unable to cope, of the sick dragging themselves from hospital to hospital, of the enormity of the whole shutdown, and hopelessness. She also writes about the sheer weight of the online videos that were posted by desperate people. “Yesterday, I said we are our worst enemies,’’ she writes. The process, of becoming enemies, begins with the “feeling of numbness.’’ A feeling that has only grown across the world as deaths pile up, migrants walk home battling hunger and as the enormity of the humanitarian crisis unveils itself day by day. She also writes about death, and the sheer loneliness of it. Death rites, she observes, is central to who we are. The deaths that happened in Wuhan did not allow for that.
At a time when the world has asked for an independent probe into the origins of coronavirus comes the Fang Fang account, which is also important because of the questions it asks. Fang Fang asked questions and talked about accountability. Her criticism maybe directed to the way the virus was handled, but it has the party concerned. And there is now a Fang Fang phenomenon.
The book, published by Harper Collins and translated by Micheal Berry, released over the weekend. The audio version of the book will be available later this month.
