Such Is This [email protected]

Such Is This [email protected] follows Ru Yan, a middle-aged widow and botanist living alone with her dog in an unnamed central Chinese city widely understood to be Wuhan. Withdrawn from the world after her husband's death, she finds a new voice online, hosting a chatroom for fellow empty-nesters and gradually building a circle of freethinking friends — a mechanic-autodidact and a philosophy reading group led by a charismatic professor among them.

As the 2003 SARS epidemic emerges, Ru Yan begins blogging about it after her brother-in-law is quarantined, watching in real time as posts describing the outbreak are deleted online before the government's official narrative catches up. Her growing online prominence attracts the attention of a powerful official who seeks her favor, complicating her position further.

Hu Fayun's novel, first serialized online in China before its print publication was banned, is a portrait of information suppression, intellectual awakening, and the price of speaking the truth under a government skilled at rewarding silence and punishing candor.