Tiananmen remembered

June 4th is the 20th anniversary of the violent suppression of student-led protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

In China, the events are not spoken about in public and rarely even in private.

That is why the leading Chinese author Ma Jian called his recent book 'Beijing Coma'.

Now living in the west, he was involved in the protests, and the novel focuses on what he sees as the collectively comatose state of mind in China over the past 20 years.

When Ma Jian came to speak to the BBC's Claire Bolderson, she asked him why the picture he paints of the disparate and often quarrelling students in the square isn't very flattering.

First broadcast 4 June 2009