Power Search
Low Price Guarantee
We Take School POs
A Dictionary of Maqiao
Contributor(s): Han, Shaogong (Author), Lovell, Julia (Translator)

View larger image

 ISBN: 0231127448     ISBN-13: 9780231127448
Publisher: Columbia University Press
OUR PRICE: $38.85  

Binding Type: Hardcover
Published: July 2003
Qty:

Annotation: 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 authors own experience as a young man.

Click for more in this series: Weatherhead Books on Asia
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction
Dewey: FIC
LCCN: 2002041712
Age Level: 22-UP
Grade Level: 17-UP
Series: Weatherhead Books on Asia
Physical Information: 0.95" H x 6.32" W x 9.22" L (1.29 lbs) 400 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Chinese
Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 06/16/2003 pg. 49
Library Journal 06/15/2003 pg. 101
Kirkus Reviews 07/15/2003 pg. 937
New York Times 08/31/2003 pg. 17
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
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.
 
Customer ReviewsSubmit your own review
 
To tell a friend about this book, you must Sign In First!