The Diary Of Ma Yan: The Life of a Chinese Schoolgirl

by Ma Yan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.37

  'No more money for school this year. I till the land in order to pay for my brothers' schooling. When I think of the happy times at school, I can almost imagine myself there. How I want to study! I want to go to school, Mother. How wonderful if I could stay at school forever!' - Ma Yan, aged 13 In a remote province in Northeastern China, in May 2001, the journalist Pierre Haski and his group are preparing to leave the tiny village they have been visiting. Suddenly a peasant woman approaches and urgently thrusts into their hands a letter, written on the back of a seed packet, and three small brown notebooks filled with characters in a finely drawn pencil. When their precious bundle is translated, they are astonished to find they hold thirteen-year-old Ma Yan's diary and a passionate letter she'd written to her mother, headed, I Want To Study. The Diary of Ma Yan tells the moving tale of a spirited girl who wants to overcome her impoverished life, who prefers to go hungry in order to save money to buy a pen, who feels deeply for her mother, and her young brother . It is a story of indomitable spirit, wonderful humour and thirsty intelligence. Autobiography Isbn 1 84408 076 5

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.88

  No more money for school this year. I till the land in order to pay for my brothers' schooling. When I think of the happy times at school, I can almost imagine myself there. How I want to study!' - Ma Yan, aged 13 When the journalist Pierre Haski was passed three small brown notebooks in a remote province in Northeastern China, an extraordinary friendship began. 'A few years ago in the remote village of Zhangjiashu in Ningxia region of northern China Ma Yan was distraught because her parents could not afford to keep her in school. Today she is the 16-year-old author of Ma Yan's Diary which has appeared in seventeen languages . Thanks to its publication, her family is no longer poor, and 250 other Ningxia youngsters, mostly girls, now have scholarships to continue studying' New York Times