But the financial models of newspaper publishing in the Arab world also differ from their Western counterparts, with a sclerotic advertising industry, low subscription rates and political financing, according to experts.

The focus of the novel is on Dai Wei, one of the student activists who occupied the Square demanding democracy and reform from the sclerotic communist regime.

Four steps past the turnstiles everybody is already backed up haunch to paunch for the climb up the ramp and the stairs to the surface, a great funnel of flesh, wool, felt, leather, rubber and steaming alumicron, with the blood squeezing through everybody’s old sclerotic arteries in hopped-up spurts from too much coffee and the effort of surfacing from the subway at the rush hour.