A dictionary of Maqiao

Author / Creator

Han, Shaogong

Available as

Physical

Summary

"This novel about an urban youth "displaced" to a small village in rural China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) is a fictionalized portrait of the author's own experience as a young man. ...

"This novel about an urban youth "displaced" to a small village in rural China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) 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." "In Maqiao, Han encounters an upside-down world among the village's denizens: 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 "dear," while the aged reckon their lives to be "cheap."" "As entries build one upon another, Han meditates on the ability of a waidi ren (out-sider) 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."--BOOK JACKET.

Show More