Evoking Studs Terkel, Shen Fuyu delivers a rollicking deep dive
into working life in a small village in rural China, tracing the
last 100 years of history. Born in Shen Village in Southeast China,
Shen Fuyu grew up in a family of farmers. Years later, Shen, now a
writer, returned to his hometown to capture the village's rich
history in the face of industrialization. Through his own childhood
memories and those of his ancestors, Shen resurrects the working
life of Shen Village through interlinked stories of fifteen
artisans as their lives intersect over the course of a century.
While Shen's view of his hometown and his heritage is tinged with
nostalgia, he does not romanticize it. Nor does he sugarcoat the
backbreaking difficulty of life in rural China, but he still
captures its small satisfactions and joys of loving one's work with
a great deal of care. In an acerbic, earthy and unsparing style
that swings from poignancy to comedy, sometimes within a single
paragraph, Shen evokes the spirits of these workers--a
bamboo-weaver and his beloved bull, a carpenter's magical saw, the
deserter who became the village lantern-maker and a rebellious
woman who beats up her own kidnapper. A reflection on the
vicissitudes of small-town life during the epic shift from
agricultural to industrial civilization, The Artisans vividly
details the hardships, friendships and communal mythmaking of a
disappearing community.
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