A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han Shaogong

A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han Shaogong

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.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780385339353
ISBN 10	0385339356
Title	A Dictionary of Maqiao
Author	Han Shaogong
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2005-09-27
Number of pages	416
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.