{"product_id":"a-dictionary-of-maqiao-0231127448","title":"A Dictionary of Maqiao","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0231127448\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e Shaogong, Han\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e New\u003c\/p\u003e\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.Han 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.\"As entries build one upon another, Han meditates on the ability of a waidi ren (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":"Mia Karts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51681176420640,"sku":"NEW0231127448","price":45.56,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0980\/7426\/3840\/files\/71XBDlODfXL.jpg?v=1779362827","url":"https:\/\/miakarts.com\/products\/a-dictionary-of-maqiao-0231127448","provider":"Miakarts Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}