In recent decades, self-proclaimed “independent bookstores” have arisen across China. In the West, such retailers represent an alternative to corporations and chains. In China, by contrast, they differentiate themselves from not only the state-owned Xinhua Bookstore but also other privately owned shops through an emphasis on intellectual independence and the free exchange of ideas. In Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China (Columbia University Press, 2026), author Zheng Liu takes readers inside the world of independent bookselling in China, showing how a wide range of figures navigate the challenges of book retailing in the digital age amid rapidly shifting social, political, and economic dynamics. Drawing on more than a decade of immersive research, Liu unveils how these bookstores carve out a unique identity and market position. Richly detailed and compellingly written, the book sheds new light on the interplay among culture, commerce, and politics in China, offering timely insights into the evolving dynamics of China’s book industry and wider cultural economy.

Xixuan Collins: When I first came across your book, I was drawn to the subtitle because my father used to work at a Xinhua bookstore, and I have a special affection for bookstores in China, especially after living overseas for almost thirty years. I decided to read it, knowing this book is “academic” and uncertain what I could get out of it. I’m glad I did, because I learned a lot and enjoyed reading it. What made you decide to write this book?

Zheng Liu: It’s partially based on my PhD study, which I pursued in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge University from 2013 to 2018. It is something of a convention in the social sciences and humanities to publish one’s PhD thesis as a monograph. This book, however, isn’t a simple replica of my thesis, for it expands my thesis with lots of new materials and new data. In writing the book, I wanted to share the interesting empirical findings of my study with a wider audience but also to further develop the concept of “culturally adapted strategy” as a novel theoretical framework for explaining similar cultural trends in China to independent bookselling. 

Moreover, there was, and still is, a scarcity of English-language academic research on book culture and the book industry in China. Given that China has the second-largest book market in the world, it was rather peculiar to me how little we knew, in the West, about China’s book culture and book world. This was one reason why I discuss in great detail in the book the structure and workings of the Chinese book publishing industry as well as bookselling, for I wanted this book to fill an important gap in the English-language academic literature on understanding the people, organizations, processes, and relationships that constitute and shape one of the world’s largest book markets.

Collins: Following up on that question, why should a nonacademic reader who doesn’t have Chinese roots like me read this book? How can this book help average readers understand contemporary China or some aspects of the country?

Liu: Nonacademic readers who are interested in China, especially contemporary Chinese culture and business, or in book culture and the book business, should find this book relevant to their interests. Apart from chapter 3, in which I discuss the concept of “culturally adapted strategy,” which can be a bit too theoretical for some nonacademic readers, the remaining chapters are written in such a way that they should be easy to follow and engage with. 

Specifically, chapter 1 should be of interest to readers wanting to understand how the book publishing and retailing industries work in China, while chapters 2, 4, and 5 deal specifically with the topic of independent bookselling—i.e., how it emerged and developed in China during the first two decades of the twenty-first century. These chapters should help readers gain a deeper understanding of topics such as how independent bookselling in China is both similar to and different from the notion and business model of independent bookselling in the Anglo-American world; how some independent bookstores manage to survive while others struggle or fail; and how their emergence and development were shaped by forces from both within and beyond the territory of the book business. 

Ultimately, my goal is for readers, upon finishing the book, to have a better understanding not only of why and how independent bookselling has gained such momentum in China’s cultural and intellectual life but also of the wider trends and dynamics that shape both independent bookselling and other related cultural-economic developments in contemporary China.

Collins: I think you have achieved your goal. In your book, you mention that between 2014 and 2023, you visited fifty-nine independent bookshops across six cities in China to gather material. You also joined Chinese social media to monitor ongoing development of the independent book industry. Can you elaborate on your research process, why you took such an approach, and how this approach strengthens the book’s conclusion?

Liu: My research design was qualitative in nature. Qualitative research in the social sciences refers to research that employs methods such as semistructured interviews, focus groups, observation, and documentary analysis. It is as opposed to quantitative research, which utilizes primarily numerical, statistical, or model-based data to test hypotheses and theories. Qualitative scholars like myself seek to understand a phenomenon or process by talking to the people or organizations directly involved in it (in this case, independent booksellers and the other book industry practitioners I interviewed—namely, publishers, editors, and bookstore customers); by observing the activities and practices that constitute the phenomenon or process (in this case, how bookstores are stocked and decorated, how events are organized, etc.); and by analyzing documents and other textual materials that contain valuable information about the phenomenon or process researched. 

It is common for qualitative research to last an extended period of time, involving, for example, repeated field visits to the people, organizations, and sites you study, to conduct multiple rounds of interviews, and, in my case, to sustain online observation of a social media group for independent booksellers over several years. I believe the strength of this approach is that it allowed me to gain unique insights into the world of independent booksellers that would be difficult to capture through numerical, statistical, or model-based data. While quantitative research has its strengths, for a study like this one—there was a paucity of previous research and data on the subject that I could draw on—qualitative methods were the most appropriate because, by talking directly to the people and observing their everyday practices, I was able to understand the phenomenon from the perspectives of the independent booksellers themselves, rather than from other people’s interpretation of their activities, while at the same time retaining my own objectivity and critical faculty to interpret and analyze my data as a professionally trained social scientist. 

Collins: Very interesting! I appreciate your explanation about the research methodology adopted by social scientists. Your book is about “independent” bookstores in China. You pointed out that the Chinese term for “independent,” duli (独立), conveys a nuanced sense of standing out and being noticeable, a connotation absent in the English word “independent.” In other words, “independent” and duli, although paired as translation for each other, are not truly identical. Some meaning is inevitably lost in translation. What’s your thought on how this kind of “imperfect” translation may, potentially, subtly shape a reader’s expectation and experience of translated work? In other words, when a Chinese reader reads about duli shudian and when an English-speaking reader reads about an “independent bookstore,” they may not be thinking about the same thing?

Liu: Exactly. I doubt many readers would read the book as meticulously as you did and notice my discussion of this particular sense of duli, but you are absolutely right here that the sense of standing out, being noticeable, and being different is extremely important for understanding the motivations of Chinese independent booksellers. However, this sense isn’t always obvious or straightforward to non-Chinese readers. In fact, it isn’t always obvious or straightforward to many Chinese people either. I gave a lecture in Shanghai recently to a room full of publishing studies students, and I worked hard to explain to them the difference between duli and independent, even with the aid of the Li Yannian poem that I discuss in the book. This experience made me realize the importance of precise translation to effective intercultural communication. I therefore have the highest admiration for Xu Yuanchong and his superlative English translations of traditional Chinese poetry. Discovering that he translates duli in Li Yannian Ge as “high above the world she stands,” instead of as “independent,” or something similar, was one of the most exciting moments of my research!

Collins: I remember that you mentioned “high above the world she stands” in your book. Indeed, Mr. Xu was truly a giant in the field of literary translation.

Liu: As for the question about “imperfect translations,” I’m not sure I’m qualified to talk about it in depth, for translation isn’t my field of expertise. But my hunch is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to expect translators to translate works, especially literary and intellectual works, in a way that is “precise” in both linguistic and cultural terms. This, I think, is because language is never only about semantics. It is also deeply about culture and shared experience. And culture and shared experience are something that can rarely be perfectly reproduced in another language that has developed in a different cultural, historical, and social context. So, I guess some degree of loss or imprecision is inevitable in translation, which is all the more reason why we should hold great translators like Xu Yuanchong in high regard.

Language is never only about semantics. It is also deeply about culture and shared experience.

Collins: Indeed, translation must consider culture and shared experience. This is why, I think, that AI can never replace human translators when translating works of literature and academics. My follow-up question, then, is: What can academics and authors do to help readers bridge the language and translation gaps and reach a true understanding of a different culture? Is that even achievable? I think one way to solve, no, to approach—I’m not sure the problem can actually be “solved”—is to have academics and authors who are fluent in both languages write books. If you’re not fluent in both Mandarin and English, you would not have picked up the nuanced difference between duli and “independent.”

Liu: I agree with you, and I think this is important also because to write is to express ideas. To write about your ideas in one language is something drastically different from writing it in one language and then having it translated into another. I doubt this book would have been the same had it been written in Chinese first and translated into English later on!

Collins: So true! Once we understand the distinction between duli and “independent,” we can then look at what an independent bookstore in China is. Readers should read your book to find out, but can you give us a summary here? How is a Chinese independent bookstore different from one in the UK or US? How are they similar?

Liu: There are three main identifiers: nonstate ownership, operational autonomy, and a sense of standing out and being different. As I argue in the book, in the UK and US contexts, independent bookstores are traditionally understood to refer to any bookstores that are not chains owned by large corporations. Laura J. Miller’s classic book Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption provides a detailed account of the history and evolution of the notion and business model of independent bookselling in America, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in this topic. In recent decades, being independent has acquired an additional meaning—namely, being community-minded. I argue in my book that this sense is not relevant to Chinese independent bookstores. Other similarities between Chinese and UK/US independent bookstores are mainly found in their daily operations—for example, both can rely heavily on coffee and stationery for revenue.

The differences, however, remain important. That Chinese independent bookstores firmly ground their value and contribution in their independence from the state and in their commitment to high-quality intellectual reading materials suggests to me that they are driven by a set of values and motivations quite different from those shaping their Western counterparts. I’ve argued that these values and motivations are shaped by the particular relationship between culture, politics, and commercialism in contemporary Chinese cultural industries.

Collins: In your book, you coined the concept “culturally adapted strategy” and argued that this concept should serve as “a central analytical framework for understanding the practices of independent bookstores in China.” To me, this is an innovative concept that challenges the Western tendency to consider every nonstate-sponsored activity/enterprise in China as a form of resistance to the state. How did you conceive this concept? Why is this concept so important?

Liu: I came up with this concept because I needed a better framework for making sense of the data I had collected about the practices of independent bookstores. I found the existing framework in the literature—one that, as you describe, considers nonstate-sponsored activities in terms of political resistance—to be both restricting and inaccurate. It is restricting because it lacks the capacity to account for the full range of activities undertaken by and shaping independent bookstores, especially those with no apparent political implications, such as why they choose not to participate in price wars. It is inaccurate because, contrary to what the resistance narrative would imply, my materials strongly suggested that the “political engagement” of some independent bookstores was not primarily about resisting the establishment but about distinction-seeking; in particular, it’s about distinguishing themselves from competitors, including the state-owned Xinhua Bookstore. 

My materials strongly suggested that the “political engagement” of some independent bookstores was not primarily about resisting the establishment but about distinction-seeking.

I therefore conceptualize this as a strategy of political framing: the bookstores intentionally and strategically frame some of their activities in political terms to craft an identity that would position them differently from their competitors in the market. I subsequently identified two more strategies—moral positioning and cultural distinguishing—which, together with political framing, constitute what I call culturally adapted strategies. I argue that these are some business strategies that independent bookstores employ to distinguish themselves from their competitors so as to cultivate some much-needed space for survival in the highly competitive field of bookselling.

Collins: As with everything about contemporary China, it’s tempting to frame it with boxes already drawn, but sometimes what we need are new frames. In the US, some famous writers are also independent bookstore owners. Are there such bookstores in China? One thing you mention in your book is that “personality,” or gexing, is extremely important for an independent bookstore, which to me means the owners are very specific in stocking and selling the books they like. Does this preference in turn impact the world of literature in China, impact what writers write? In other words, how are the book industry and the literary world in China connected?

Liu: There are independent bookstores in China owned by writers. But for most of the independent booksellers I spoke to, I felt they placed a greater emphasis on intellectual books, especially on what they call xueshu books/学术书, than on literature. In my book, I use the term “scholarly books” to refer to xueshu books, but this translation doesn’t fully capture its meaning and scope, for when used by independent bookstores, xueshu books refer to books, both academic and nonacademic, both nonfiction and fiction, that have considerable intellectual depth and set out to guide the reader to think about issues of social, political, and public importance. I believe their focus on xueshu books is a legacy these independent bookstores inherited from the xueshu/学术 bookstores of the 1980s.

Xueshu books refer to books that have considerable intellectual depth and set out to guide the reader to think about issues of social, political, and public importance.

Sorry, I haven’t really addressed your question about the relationship between the book industry and the literary world in China. This is partly because I don’t know enough about this particular world. I also think there is a key difference worth noting here, which is how “the literary world” is organized in China and how it is different from how the literary world organizes and works in the US, for example. My impression is that a significant part of the literary field in China is heavily organized around the state-affiliated “writers associations” (zuoxie 作协), which have their own venues for publication and publicity, in ways that are quite different from how the literary world generally works in the US and UK, although I may be overgeneralizing here.

Collins: I’m aware of the writers associations in China and understand that it’s a big deal if a writer is allowed to join it—it means one’s work is considered good enough! Very different here. I also noticed that in every Chinese bookshop I have visited, translated works from around the world are prominently display alongside Chinese titles. This is not a pattern I have observed in the bookshops I have visited in the United States. If a translated work wins a prestigious award (such as a National Book Award), then it may show up in some bookstores. Your book mentions that many independent bookstores in China actively resist carrying best-sellers. In your research for the book, do you have a sense or even data of what and how people read in China? Fewer people read actual books now; should we just be happy if people read anything at all? Does what we read say anything about us? 

Liu: I don’t have data on what and how people read in China. But the booksellers I interviewed certainly liked to complain about how people nowadays no longer read as many books as they used to. It would be extremely difficult to quantify what and how Chinese people read these days, given the sheer size of the population. I do agree, to an extent, that what we read says something about us. But I also think we need to be careful not to overgeneralize here. Reading, I think, is a deeply personal but also deeply social activity, especially in the age of social media. What people choose to read can indeed reflect their individual interests and preferences, but those choices are also profoundly shaped by their social surroundings and broader social and cultural trends. 

It is in this sense that I think physical bookstores are of crucial importance. Unlike online bookstores, where you are often recommended titles by algorithms based on your search or purchase history, in a physical bookstore, you are much more likely to stumble across books that you would never have actively searched for but might end up enjoying. I think offering readers more choices is one of the key values of keeping those brick-and-mortar bookstores on our high streets.

I think offering readers more choices is one of the key values of keeping those brick-and-mortar bookstores on our high streets.

Collins: It’s so true. Nothing compares with the experience in a physical bookstore, where one can just wander, browse, and hold that copy in one’s hands. Finally, can you share with readers what your current research project is, and what your next book will be?

Liu: I am currently working on two parallel projects. One is concerned with understanding the social nature of artificial intelligence and the social organization of China’s AI industry. The other explores how the use of AI is reshaping trade book publishing in China. I definitely hope my next book will be about either of these two topics! 

Collins: Fascinating! Both topics sound interesting and important. I look forward to your next book! Thank you so much for such a wonderful conversation.