Years of Red Dust
Stories of Shanghai
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Published originally in the pages of Le Monde, this collection of linked short stories by Qiu Xiaolong has already been a major bestseller in France (Cite de la Poussiere Rouge) and Germany (Das Tor zur Roten Gasse), where it and the author was the subject of a major television documentary. The stories in Years of Red Dust trace the changes in modern China over fifty years—from the early days of the Communist revolution in 1949 to the modernization movement of the late nineties—all from the perspective of one small street in Shanghai, Red Dust Lane. From the early optimism at the end of the Chinese Civil War, through the brutality and upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, to the death of Mao, the pro-democracy movement and the riots in Tiananmen Square—history, on both an epic and personal scale, unfolds through the bulletins posted and the lives lived in this one lane, this one corner of Shanghai.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Qiu's (Death of a Red Heroine) latest is a collection of linked stories from the vantage point of the inhabitants of Red Dust Lane in Shanghai depicting China through several tumultuous decades, from 1949 to 2005. Most begin with excerpts from the year-end issue of the Red Dust Lane Blackboard Newsletter, a summary of the year's political changes, which read like a mini history lesson. In "Return of POW 1," the Red Dust Lane residents are told in 1953 that Bai Jie, a nurse in the Chinese People's Volunteers during the Korean War, has been killed. She is mourned and honored until 1954 when, to the Red Dust residents' surprise, she returns after being released from a POW camp. Instead of a hero's welcome, she is greeted with suspicion. "Cricket Fighting," set in 1969, is centered on the neighborhood's eponymous popular sport. The narrator is a young child whose status is briefly elevated after receiving the gift of Big General, a superstar cricket. Qiu's writing is transportive, and readers will feel as though they've traveled through China's history. He captures the mood of this fascinating country through its most ordinary citizens.
