Literary Rebellion, Near and Far

From the New York Times, November 7, 2011, on the front page: "A Literary Rebel Finds Success."

Really? Where?

Not here, it turns out. In China. Novelist Murong Xuecun, "a laureate of corruption" and "word criminal," is approvingly profiled.

The New York Times is the place, incidentally, that had their security thugs throw members of the Underground Literary Alliance and a zine table off the sidewalk in front of their then-headquarters in January of 2007.

For The New York Times, literary rebels are fine as long as they're not American. As long as they don't expose corruption in the very corrupt U.S. literary regime.