{"product_id":"dictionary-of-maqiao-book-han-shaogong-9780385339353","title":"A Dictionary of Maqiao","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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHan 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs entries build one upon another, Han meditates on the ability of a \u003ci\u003ewaidi ren\u003c\/i\u003e (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.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49562927333649,"sku":"GOR004421148","price":19.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50349796131089,"sku":"CIN0385339356G","price":4.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51001912819985,"sku":"NIN9780385339353","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51751131873553,"sku":"CIN0385339356VG","price":4.58,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52584891121937,"sku":"NLS9780385339353","price":24.19,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0385339356.jpg?v=1751420138","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/dictionary-of-maqiao-book-han-shaogong-9780385339353","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}