Teacher finds fulfillment in the darkness

Despite being blind, she found a way to continue helping her students

Writer Liu Fang's first novel, about the life of a teacher at a rural school in the mountainous province of Guizhou in the 1990s, greatly resembles her own early years - before she lost her sight and struggled to find a full life in the darkness.

Liu, 44, was a Chinese language teacher at No 3 Middle School in the Baiyun district of Guiyang until 2006, when she could no longer see the characters printed in the textbooks.