The Vagrants, by Yiyun Li

This was recently on one of the booklists for summer reading, so I picked up at a copy at the library. It is set in the late seventies and revolves around the counterrevolutionary struggle that included the "democracy wall" in Bejing. The characters are well developed and intertwined in a creative and interesting way which forces the reader to use the memory tracks in their brain. I was not aware that the kind of issues described in this book were still prevalent in 1979.
It's not a "happy" book, but it was a fascinating (albeit somewhat depressing) look into another culture.