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A Dictionary of Maqiao
From the daring imagination of one of China's greatest living novelists comes a work of startling power and originality-the story of a young man "displaced" to a small village in rural China during the 1960s. Told in the format of a dictionary, with a series of vignettes disguised as entries, A Dictionary of Maqiao is a novel of bold invention-and a fascinating, comic, deeply moving journey through the dark heart of the Cultural Revolution.
Entries trace the wisdom and absurdities of Maqiao: the petty squabbles, family grudges, poverty, infidelities, fantasies, lunatics, bullies, superstitions, and especially the odd logic in their use of language-where the word for "beginning" is the same as the word for "end"; "little big brother" means older sister; to be "scientific" means to be lazy; and "streetsickness" is a disease afflicting villagers visiting urban areas. Filled with colorful characters-from a weeping ox to a man so poisonous that snakes die when they bite him-A Dictionary of Maqiao is both an important work of Chinese literature and a probing inquiry into the extraordinary power of language.
Entries trace the wisdom and absurdities of Maqiao: the petty squabbles, family grudges, poverty, infidelities, fantasies, lunatics, bullies, superstitions, and especially the odd logic in their use of language-where the word for "beginning" is the same as the word for "end"; "little big brother" means older sister; to be "scientific" means to be lazy; and "streetsickness" is a disease afflicting villagers visiting urban areas. Filled with colorful characters-from a weeping ox to a man so poisonous that snakes die when they bite him-A Dictionary of Maqiao is both an important work of Chinese literature and a probing inquiry into the extraordinary power of language.
Book Details
- Publisher: Dial Press
- Publish Date: Sep 27th, 2005
- Pages: 416
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 8.22in - 5.27in - 1.01in - 1.02lb
- EAN: 9780385339353
- Categories: • Literary• Historical - General• Epistolary (Letters, Diaries, etc.)
About the Author
Han Shaogong is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and translator. He is also the former editor of the magazines Hainan Review and Frontiers and is the vice-chairman of the Hainan Writer's Association.
Julia Lovell is a translator of modern Chinese literature and a research fellow at Queen's College, Cambridge.
What people are saying
Jess Row
@row_ie_argument
2 years
Novelist, essayist. Pronounced "Row": a British argument. He/him. My new novel, THE NEW EARTH, is coming in March 2023! Preorders and info at https://t.co/kpJTThnwIm
@TheLuisPanini David Grossman’s SEE UNDER: LOVE does this, but not through the whole text. Also Han Shaogong’s A DICTIONARY OF MAQIAO.
Praise for this book
worth reading...this fascinating and surprisingly accessible book
What people are saying
Jess Row
@row_ie_argument
2 years
Novelist, essayist. Pronounced "Row": a British argument. He/him. My new novel, THE NEW EARTH, is coming in March 2023! Preorders and info at https://t.co/kpJTThnwIm
@TheLuisPanini David Grossman’s SEE UNDER: LOVE does this, but not through the whole text. Also Han Shaogong’s A DICTIONARY OF MAQIAO.