In the autumn of 1998, nine months before the Tiananmen Uprising, Sandra Hutchison traveled to Anhui Province, China, to teach English literature. Chinese Brushstrokes tells of Hutchison's pilgrimage to the top of a holy Buddhist mountain, a sojourn in a village deep in the Chinese countryside, encounters with local peasants and famous artists, and the rise of the Democracy Movement in Beijing, Shanghai and Heifei.

Winner: Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. A fascinating look at the people, places and stories that make up Winnipeg's literary history, from its earliest days to the present.