One of the most-talked about works of fiction to emerge from
China in recent years, this novel about an urban youth "displaced"
to a small village in rural China during the Cultural Revolution is
a fictionalized portrait of the author's own experience as a young
man. Han Shaogong was one of millions of students relocated from
cities and towns to live and work alongside peasant farmers in an
effort to create a classless society. Translated into English for
the first time, Han's novel is an exciting experiment in form --
structured as a dictionary of the Maqiao dialect -- through which
he seeks to understand and translate the local life and customs of
his strange new home.
Han encounters an upside-down world among the people of Maqiao:
a con man dupes his neighbors into thinking that he has found the
fountain of youth by convincing them that his father is in fact his
son; to be scientific" is to be lazy; time and relationships are
understood using the language of food and its preparation; and to
die young is considered "sweet," while the aged reckon their lives
to be "cheap."
As entries build one upon another, Han meditates on the ability
of a "waidi ren" (outsider) to represent the ways of life of
another community. In this light, the Communist effort to control
the language and history of a people whose words and past are bound
together in ineluctably local ways emerges as an often comical,
sometimes tragic exercise in miscommunication.
General
Imprint: |
Columbia University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Weatherhead Books on Asia |
Release date: |
July 2003 |
First published: |
July 2003 |
Authors: |
Shaogong Han
|
Translators: |
Julia Lovell
|
Dimensions: |
234 x 160 x 24mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
400 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-231-12744-8 |
Subtitles: |
Chinese
|
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General
|
LSN: |
0-231-12744-8 |
Barcode: |
9780231127448 |
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