Foreword
‘Edgar Snow of the New Era’
Erik Nilsson has long been celebrated among distinguished
international storytellers who journey to remote and sometimes
even uninhabited front lines of China’s transformation.
His book, Closer to Heaven, swiftly won acclaim and sold briskly
following its first edition’s release in January 2021. This second
edition features fresh content that further informs and inspires
beyond the sold-out first print. It will be published in English and
Chinese like the first edition, as well as Italian for the first time to
Erik Nilsson presents his book, Closer to Heaven, as a keynote speaker of
the Global Young Leaders Dialogue in Beijing in July 2021.
VIIIenhance its reach.
The first edition and Nilsson’s story were featured by
hundreds of major media, from print to TV documentaries. At
one point, the book trended in the No 2 spot on the Chinese social
media platform Weibo.
The journalist has since enjoyed presenting at packed book
releases, speeches and lectures in many cities, where audiences
laugh, cry, cheer, vie to ask questions and form long lines to get
their copies signed.
“To be honest, I worried nobody would read it,” Nilsson says.
“Instead, it proved quite popular.”
Nilsson has donated his earnings from Closer to Heaven
for surgeries and other projects for nomadic children from the
inhospitable Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where he founded a volunteer
initiative in 2011.
Over time, the American writer has not only chronicled but
ultimately become part of the story of China’s poverty alleviation
and development.
That’s part of the reason Closer to Heaven is featured under
China Intercontinental Press’ Marco Polo of the New Era series.
Yet Nilsson picked up another historical figure’s namesake
following the first edition’s success.
He says he’s proud to be a founding member of China Daily’s
Edgar Snow Newsroom, established in June 2021. The Newsroom
enables leading foreign journalists and experts to help the world
better understand China’s realities.
Edgar Snow is a venerated household name in China, roughly
80 years after the American became the first foreign journalist
to (clandestinely) enter Yan’an and report on what is today the
IXX
world’s oldest and largest
political party, the CPC. The
Party, which had just over 50
members when it was founded
over a century ago, today has
96 million members steering
the progress of a nation of 1.4
billion people with growing
global significance.
Snow’s seminal work,
Red Star Over China, was the
first book Nilsson read when
he arrived in China in 2005.
N i l s s o n re t r a c e d S n o w ’ s
steps in Yan’an in 2021, when
he hosted a feature-length
documentary about how the
area had transformed over the
past eight decades.
Nilsson says: “We’re
both US journalists who’ve
journeyed to places foreigners
and especially Americans had
rarely or never gone. Yet Snow faced far greater dangers. He had
to be smuggled into the region in the first place! He explored the
country and Yan’an during a time when they were hosts of several
intersecting wars.
“I’ve explored them during a time of peace, ultimately
brought about by the deprivations Snow documented as China
Nilsson stands in front of the cave
where Edgar Snow first met Mao
Zedong and took a photo of Mao
wearing Snow’s hat, which became
the most iconic image of the
chairman in history.struggled to bring about the period of security and prosperity
I’ve covered. I’ve chronicled the fruits of the desperate adversities
Snow recorded, around eight decades later, as China and Yan’an
have risen from dire deprivation — even despair. That is, to reach
the first centenary goal of achieving xiaokang, or a ‘moderately
prosperous society in all respects’, a foundational pillar of which
was eliminating extreme poverty.
“And we’ve both devoted ourselves and our writings to
recounting stories not only about China but ultimately about hope
come true. That’s perhaps where our own stories — individual and
shared, personal and published — intersect beyond time but not
space.
“One of my greatest honors from my work has been when not
only foreigners say it has made them understand China differently
but especially when Chinese say they’ve learned new things about
their own country,” he says.
“China’s poverty alleviation isn’t just a Chinese story but a
human story — a legacy of incomparable magnitude belonging to
our entire species. I don’t consider telling and contributing to this a
job or career but a life mission.
“And I intend to live well.”
Indeed, we look forward to more of Nilsson’s insightful
and compelling storytelling as he continues to explore China’s
development from the field in the days and years to come.
—The Edgar Snow Newsroom of China Daily
June 20, 2022
