Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Liang Hong is a writer, essayist and professor at Renmin University of China. She is known for narrativising rural China, and is heralded by critics as a trailblazer, focusing on the lives of ordinary rural people and exploring something other than the metropolis. Her own rural upbringing and memories heavily inspire her works, for which she has won a number of literary prizes. Esther Tyldesley is a graduate of Robinson College, Cambridge who teaches Chinese language and translation at the University of Edinburgh. Her published translations include Xinran’s The Good Women of China, Sky Burial and China Witness, also by Xinran, Confucius from the Heart by Yu Dan and Little Aunt Crane by Yan Geling. In her spare time she reads far too many books and dreams of China.<p>“Speaks to universal challenges, problems facing not just Chinese villages but also alienated communities around the world." - Ian Johnson, New York Times</p><p>“It is in these stories that the universality of people’s hopes, fears and frustrations really shines through.” - Jo Lateu, New Internationalist</p><p>“Stunningly insightful… What makes Liang’s study so compelling is the way in which it offers a glimpse of a world in which personal problems … exist on the same level as broader social and political problems.” Mark Rappolt, ArtReview</p>
Wu Township is hollowing out. Our most capable sons and daughters have long since uprooted from their birthplace on the central plains to fuel China’s economic miracle. The ancient trees now sit in the shade of a modern aqueduct, funnelling even our precious water to the metropolises beyond.
From the marketplace where gossip is traded to the long-abandoned execution grounds, ordinary life carries on. For we who remain, feuds between neighbours compound the burdens shared by increasingly ageing shoulders. But If you know where to look, you’ll find the town still clings to its customs and dreams.
Let me show you around. If we’re lucky, we’ll run into the benevolent doctor or beauty store owner, and if we’re not, the corrupt local official, perhaps even the souls of executed ancestors. Why do you want to visit? To see it before it’s all gone… of course.
The Sacred Clan tells the story of Wu Township, following its journey as it succumbs to the competition of the urbanised metropolises. Telling the narrative through the town, several short stories give a glimpse into the lives of those who stayed over the years, and how their way has changed in the wake of China’s rapid economic development.