An elevated view

He says there are probably more than 100 million people born since the 1980s who have moved from the countryside to cities, including himself.

"In Liuzhuang, for example, there are few people younger than 45 years old. We have grown up healthily, and become the builders and pillars of cities, so why do we vilify the villages that we lived in," he says.

"So, I want to describe my experience with my hometown honestly. You cannot demand that all the villagers truly love you, but a person can feel the warmth of an acquaintance society and feel secure due to a familiarity with people as much as with locusts, cicadas, every tree, many flowers and the crops in the fields. These feelings are real," he says.

Gezi employs a simple but accurate style in his writing, a style he has been seeking for years.

"In my 20s, I wrote a lot, but I couldn't create a book, mostly because I didn't find my own voice," he says. "But now I think I have found it."

Mai Jia, writer of Decoded, compares his style to that of American writer Ernest Hemingway.

"Gezi reminds me of Hemingway. Starting as a journalist, writing for him is like going home. This is also a book about 'going home', the home for people, for the century, for love and truth, and for the heart. … Like Hemingway, Gezi always gives you strength for a desperate fight in the undulating poetic narration," Mai says.