{"product_id":"a-dictionary-of-maqiao-9780231127448","title":"A Dictionary of Maqiao","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\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.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shaogong Han","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48277326954747,"sku":"9780231127448","price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/a-dictionary-of-maqiao-9780231127448","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}