Wakefield Press

Avenue of Eternal Peace

Nicholas Jose’s books include the acclaimed novels Paper Nautilus, The Rose Crossing, The Custodians, The Red Thread and Original Face, as well as the non-fictional works Chinese Whispers: Cultural Essays and Black Sheep: Journey to Borroloola. He held the Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide from 2005 to 2008 and is ­currently a member of the University of Western Sydney’s Writing and Society Research Group.

Nicholas Jose lived in China from 1986 to 1990, working as a teacher and diplomat. After the demonstrations in many Chinese cities during 1986 and 1987 that inspired part of Avenue of Eternal Peace, he stayed on to witness the massive anti-government protests that erupted nationwide in 1989. More than a million people filled Tiananmen Square in the centre of Beijing through May that year, demanding dialogue and political change on an unprecedented scale. The authorities responded with a bloody military crackdown on 4 June in which many hundreds of demonstrators were killed or wounded. Betraying the hopes of its people, the regime had held on to power through violence and lies.

Nicholas Jose experienced what occurred at close hand. Framed by those tragic events, his novel was called ‘timely’ and ‘prescient’ on its first publication in September 1989. Avenue of Eternal Peace is a rare evocation of the mood of China in the lead-up to Tiananmen. This new, revised edition includes a fictional postscript from 2008, twenty years on.