"Paints a telling portrait of this most restless generation raised in a system that has provided them with unprecedented personal opportunities while denying them political ones. . . . A gifted observer."--Washington Post
"Informative and often humorous . . . Presents a refreshing range of perspectives about being twenty-something in China."--Forbes
"Masterfully crafted."--Los Angeles Review of Books
"A perceptive and quietly profound book."--Booklist, starred review
"Compelling and beautifully written."--Prospect

China's new youth are the generation that will change China. Offspring of the one-child policy, with no memory of Tiananmen, they are destined to transform both their nation and the world. Understanding their motivations, dreams, and attitudes is possibly the most important gauge of China's future direction as it plays an increasingly important role in shaping this century.

China's New Youth follows the lives of six young Chinese as they navigate their aspirations, discontents, politics, and love lives. Their stories include a netizen nationalist, a country migrant, the daughter of a Party member, a rising pop star, and a feminist entrepreneur. With intimate access to this diverse generation, Alec Ash--a young writer based in China since 2012--gives a vivid, immersive, fascinating account of young China as it comes of age.

China's New Youth was originally published in hardcover until the title Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China. The new paperback edition has been updated with a new preface and afterword by the author and a new foreword by Karoline Kan.
About the Author: Alec Ash is a British writer and editor in China. He was born in Oxford, England, in 1986 and studied English Literature at Oxford University. After graduating, he taught in a Tibetan village in western China for a summer before moving to Beijing in 2008. His articles have been published in the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, the Economist, Dissent, and elsewhere. He is a stringer for the London Sunday Times and a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he edits their China pages. He is also a contributor to the book of reportage Chinese Characters and coeditor of the anthology While We're Here. China's New Youth, originally published under the title Wish Lanterns, is his first book. Follow him on Twitter @alecash. He currently lives in Dali, southern China.

Karoline Kan is the author of Under Red Skies: Three Generations of Love, Loss, and Hope in China. She won the 2016 International China Journalists Association's award. and is also the 2019 winner of Young China Watcher of the Year. She writes for the New York Times, Bloomberg, Foreign Policy, and others, and lives in Beijing.