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The Dark Road

The Dark Road

by Ma Jian (Author), Flora Drew (Translator), Ma Jian (Author), Flora Drew (Translator)

  • Used

    Paperback 2014

    $4.38
Synopsis

Meili, a young peasant woman born in the remote heart of China, is married to Kongzi, a village school teacher, and a distant descendant of Confucius. They have a daughter, but desperate for a son to carry on his illustrious family line, Kongzi gets Meili pregnant again without waiting for official permission. When family planning officers storm the village to arrest violators of the population control policy, mother, father and daughter escape to the Yangtze River and begin a fugitive life. For years they drift south through the poisoned waterways and ruined landscapes of China, picking up work as they go along, scavenging for necessities and flying from police detection. As Meili's body continues to be invaded by her husband and assaulted by the state, she fights to regain control of her fate and that of her unborn child.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 368
 Publisher: Vintage
Published: 24 Apr 2014
ISBN 10: 0099572265
ISBN 13: 9780099572268
Book Overview: From the author of Beijing Coma, a compelling and shocking novel about the dark heart of China's One Child Policy. Longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2014.
 Prizes: Long-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2015 and Independent Foreign Fiction Award 2014.

Media Reviews
Unforgettable -- Stephen Abell * Sunday Telegraph *
The Dark Road follows the river-borne escape of fugitives from the one-child policy. An ill-matched couple's flight along anarchic backwaters leads them into a raw, brutal, brilliantly depicted boom-time underworld -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *
[Ma Jian's] characterization is superb... A devastating critique of China's oppressive communist regime * Mail on Sunday *
A writer of rare orgininality... All of Ma's skill and playfulness are on display as the novel builds to a climax in which Meili is forced to question her very right to exist in this fragile, ever-changing new world -- Tash Aw * Guardian *
One of China's most prominent dissident voices addresses the bleak effects of the one-child policy in this striking novel, in which the brutality of social engineering is made graphically plain. Ma Jian's work is banned in China; this unflinching portrait of one woman's struggle against oppression makes it sadly easy to understand why * New Statesman *
Author Bio
MA JIAN was born in Qingdao, China, in 1953. He is the author of Stick Out Your Tongue, his debut novel which in 1987 led to the permanent banning of his books in China; Red Dust, winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award; four collections of short stories and essays; and six further novels, including Beijing Coma, winner of the Index on Censorship Book Award and the Athens Prize for Literature. His last book, The Dark Road, nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, saw him barred from returning to China. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He now lives in exile in London.