The newly built Herzog de Meuron Olympic stadium in Beijing. Photograph: Iwan Baan

Catherine Sampson has lived in China for more than 15 years. Her fourth crime novel, The Slaughter Pavilion, is set in Beijing and features private detective Song Ren. It will be published in hardback by Macmillan on September 5. Her third novel, The Pool of Unease, in which private detective Song Ren was introduced, is now available in paperback. She has also contributed a short story to the book Beijing Portrait of a City, a collection of fiction, poetry and essays published by Odyssey which you can buy online here.

"Beijing is about to become host to what will be one of the most fascinating Olympics ever. I first came to Beijing in 1981, more than a quarter of a century ago. It was a sleepy place, where you couldn't get a taxi and the streets were full of bicycles. Restaurants were staffed by snapping waitresses and closed at eight o'clock. Because of astounding economic growth and because of the Olympics, the city has been transformed – but with restrictions on visas, traffic and public gatherings, Beijing could look like the world's most over-built ghost town come August. Great swathes of old alleyway housing and street markets have been demolished to make way for some of the world's most audacious skyscrapers and stunning sports facilities. But the history of this city is one of sometimes murderous political struggles. These ten novels and collections of short stories are rich in satire, and in metaphors for political oppression. Most of the books below are written by Chinese writers who have chosen to live abroad in order to write freely about their country."

1. Beijing Coma by Ma Jian

Published this year, Ma Jian describes the events that led up to the 1989 massacre in Beijing. He has found the perfect metaphor. Dai Wei, a student activist, lies paralysed years after being wounded during the army action of June 4. Those around him believe Dai Wei to be unconscious, but he can see and hear and, most importantly, remember. He is locked in – just as China is locked in – unable to speak or communicate freely, but silently remembering, unable to forget. The novel is rich in contemporary detail – doctors who gouge families for cash for treatment; bulldozers that threaten demolition of homes. Like much of the book, the intricate description of factional rivalries among students is rooted in fact. Ma Jian lives in London.

2. Please Don't Call Me Human by Wang Shuo

As a teenager, Wang Shuo ran wild in Beijing, and he writes in the slang of the capital. In Please Don't Call Me Human he's at his most scathingly satirical. In a thinly veiled reference to the Olympics, his Beijing taxi driver anti-hero competes in an international competition to find the nation most able to humiliate itself, with gory and gloriously symbolic results. Wang Shuo lives in Los Angeles.

3. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li

In this short story collection, Yiyun Li writes beautifully about the lives of ordinary people to tell the greater story of contemporary China. In Extra, the first story of the collection, she follows a middle-aged woman who has just been laid off from the bankrupt Beijing Red Star garment factory. The unemployed woman navigates the grim realities of modern China, first in a marriage of convenience, then as a cleaner for rich kids. Each ends tragically, but the woman catches a glimpse of love. Yiyun Li lives in the US.

4. The Uninvited by Yan Geling

This is a comic novel that gently lays bare all manner of social issues. Dan is an unemployed factory worker who discovers by accident that if he pretends to be a journalist he can attend press conferences. That means eating like a king at banquets laid on for the press, and receiving "red packets" of cash which amount to payment for writing adulatory stories. In fact he can make a comfortable living from his assumed identity. Things get more complicated as he is approached to write the stories of several people with grievances. He tries to help, with disastrous consequences. Yan Geling lives in the US.

5. The Crazed by Ha Jin

Here is another metaphor for the censorship of free expression in China, and again it is set during the student demonstrations of 1989. At a provincial university, Prof Yang suffers a stroke. His subsequent outbursts draw parallels between the cultural revolution and pre-Olympic China. This unsettles his student Jian Wan, who eventually leaves to go to Beijing to take part in the demonstrations. Ha Jin lives in the US. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award.

6. The Last Empress by Anchee Min

This is fictionalised history. Anchee Min has taken one of the most notorious women in Chinese history, the empress Dowager Cixi, and has turned her into a surprisingly accessible heroine. Drawn in by the first person narrative, the reader is taken into the heart of imperial life and witnesses first hand the life and death struggles between those who would open to the west and those who would turn China in on itself. It is a struggle that continues today in Zhongnanhai, the Communist party compound which occupies part of the old imperial palace. Anchee Min lives in California.

7. Servet the People by Yan Lianke

Yan Lianke lives in Beijing, and has said that this means he sometimes tones down what he writes. Nevertheless, Serve the People is an unashamed satire on the Communist party's instruction to "serve the people". A lowly cook working in the provinces takes the instruction too literally when his boss, a local party leader, leaves for Beijing, and the cook finds himself seduced by the official's wife.

8. I Love Dollars by Zhu Wen

Zhu Wen is another writer who chooses to live in Beijing. I Love Dollars is a collection of short stories that are often absurd and have a strong undercurrent of nihilism. Zhu, tongue firmly in cheek, debates the relative values of sex, political idealism and money.

9. The Dragon's Tail by Adam Williams

Williams' latest historical novel, The Dragon's Tail, follows British spy Harry Airton through the Japanese invasion, the cultural revolution, and up to the Beijing massacre of 1989. Williams' passion for China's modern history is rooted in his own family's experiences as expatriates in China during the same period, and in his own experience as a long-time Beijing resident. The result is engaging, enthusiastic storytelling.

10. Beijing Doll by Chun Sue

This is all teenage angst and boredom. Chun Sue is the name both of the author and the protagonist, and this is thinly veiled autobiography. Chun is pessimistic, rebellious and more interested in sex than in school. The book can feel as tedious as the narrator's life, but it is an interesting insight into a generation whose lives are as far from the Communist Youth League as from the moon. Don't be taken in. Beijing Doll tells only part of the story. Back in the late 80s, middle-aged people rolled their eyes about young people's shallow materialism. In 1989, millions of young people took to the streets nationwide calling for political change.