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Red Dust
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Somehow disappointing
A Long, Strange, Great Trip
a walk across china
"Soul Mountain" Lite
An existential self-portrait

Red Dust: A Path Through China
Ma Jian
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385720238
Release Date: 2002-11-12

Amazon.com

Chinese dissident and sometimes vagabond Ma Jian offers a sharp-edged, often surprising portrait of his native land, one that takes his readers into corners that few non-Chinese travelers have seen.

In 1983, Ma, tired of life in a China that, he writes, "feels like an old tin of beans that, having lain in the dark for forty years, is beginning to burst at the seams," grew his hair, quit his job, and took to the road. As he recounts in his able--and, at times, very strange--memoir, over the next three years he wandered into the western desert, through the mountains of Shaanxi, down the steamy southern coast, and, eventually, to Tibet. Along the way he slipped by inquisitive police agents, ate dodgy meals, fell in love a time or two, and learned much about his country--more than he bargained on, for, as he writes, "I am exhausted. China is too old, its roots too deep. I feel dirty from the delving."

Ma's travelogue, alternately humorous and sober, offers a constantly illuminating view of life behind the Great Wall. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

In 1983, at the age of thirty, dissident artist Ma Jian finds himself divorced by his wife, separated from his daughter, betrayed by his girlfriend, facing arrest for “Spiritual Pollution,” and severely disillusioned with the confines of life in Beijing. So with little more than a change of clothes and two bars of soap, Ma takes off to immerse himself in the remotest parts of China. His journey would last three years and take him through smog-choked cities and mountain villages, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquility. Remarkably written and subtly moving, the result is an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both insider and outsider in his own country could have written.

Customer Reviews:

Somehow disappointing.......2007-01-11

I really wanted to like this book. However, I found the narrator and his friends unengaging and somehow flat. I've been to China twice, admittedly after the events depicted in the book, and I've found the country much more interesting and much less oppressive than the picture one gets from this book. Especially jarring is his description of Xi'An, which I found to be a beautiful and vibrant city. His description would lead you to believe that it's dusty, dismal, and depressing. To be honest, the narrator comes across as adolescent in his disenchantment with the world, something I wouldn't expect from someone his age. Maybe it's a cultural thing, or maybe it comes from his "artistic" background.

A Long, Strange, Great Trip.......2006-09-16

An unusual, and extremely interesting trip through the backwoods (and deserts) of China.

Ma Jian's RED DUST is one of the more intriguing of the recent boom of personal accounts of living in or travel in China. Jian is, in this book at least, primarily a slacker, something of an artist, coming off of a divorce and a disastrous subsequent relationship. He falls under suspicion in the China of the early 1980s - a very different era from now - less for anything political, and more for a certain lack of attentiveness to certain details in his personal life.

In any case, he feels compelled to head out of Beijing for an indefinite amount of time, and sets upon a semi-imrovised, quasi-beatnik trek back and forth across China, spending 3 years drifting, crashing on floors, evading authorities, posing as a journalist, scamming when needed, and writing it all down.

Jian comes across as an intersting individual, not necessarily anything wise or admirable (he's about halfway between Dickens urchin and post-Kerouac hipster smoothie through most of the book), but an individual in an authoritarian world who takes it upon himself to do what untold numbers of Westerners do - go out and find yourself, and in this instance, the results are compelling. Along the way, his improvisational instincts do fail him on a few occasions - the trip does heat up a bit towards the end, and there are a few instances of getting hit by unanticipated forces of nature which betray his general lack of planning (and the fact that he's constitutionally more of a city boy than he'd occasionally like to be).

And in the meantime, he paints vivid, memorable portraits of China's varied landscape and people; not filtered through any official (or Western) sensibilities, and always a fine mix of erudition, affection and directness.

An excellent, memorable book.

-David Alston

a walk across china.......2006-06-22

this book is full of sadness, pathos and humor all at once. for the generation of Chinese who felt like the future was going to be freedom and laughter but found out the hard way, at Tiananmen in 1989 that China's future might be prosperous and rich but it would not be liberal and free, there was nothing left to do but wander the Chinese hinterlands and wasteland, which ma jian did, like a modern day , Chinese Lewis, or Clark, he visits every province and pushes himself to the limit as he searches for himself, the soul of China and a reason for going on in a messed up society that ultimately doesn't value artists or freethinkers. this book is also a pretty great adventure yarn, sort of like an amazing surivival tale.

"Soul Mountain" Lite.......2002-11-08

I finished "Red Dust" with mixed feelings: it is not a great book, but it is not bad either. It is interesting, but not profound. It is decently written, but carelessly organized.

What makes "Red Dust" valuable is that is a frank, laid-back portrait of "The Real China" (wince) in the early 1980s, a time (unlike now) when few people were writing down such basic observations as this book contains. These observations are not profound, and they ring hollow only when the try to be, but much that is profound can be gleaned from the mundane. A family's eating habits, how easily people can be duped because it is what they want to believe...these are the substance of life, and all the more so in a place where life is so tenuous as in China's interior.

But two aspects of "Red Dust", the account of Ma Jian's three years spent as a Chinese drifter, curdle the incisiveness of his insights. Despite having taken Buddhist vows, and considering himself on something of a pilgrimage for enlightenment, Ma is a rather self-important person, at least as a narrator. Many of the stories he encounters would have told better if he had been able to observe, sometimes, from the sidelines, rather than making it always about him him him. Understandable human trait, but dangerous in literature. A related flaw is the bitterness with which he filters all occurances. China never has - and probably never will be - a place to inspire bounding optimism, but persistant negativity makes a book just unpleasant to read.

The beginning chapters document Ma's life as an artist and bohemian type in Beijing, and are both tedious and hilarious. Tediously impressed with themselves for bucking convention, for viciously trying to out-artsy each other, and then praising their own genious, but hilariously true to the type of the Chinese avant-garde, especially in the words, not deeds, climate of Beijing. The crowd is eerily familiar.

It is no accident that "Red Dust's" cover bears a plug from "Soul Mountain" author Gao Xingjian, but Ma replicates the Nobel winner's formula so closely that I wonder whether Gao really meant it, or was pleased by the compliment of imitation. Both books are tales of fleeing Beijing for the romanticized countryside in the oppressively political environment of the 1980s. But Gao's book is so much more etherial and important, Ma fares badly in comparison. Ma Jian's writing is merely the Red Dust in the wind from Gao's Soul Mountain.

An existential self-portrait.......2002-10-02

The author is a native Chinese artist, which makes it hard to understand his prose as he shifts from the present, past, and dreams with many people talking. But after you get through his own primal needs, back-pack and shoes, food & cigarettes, and sex, alcohol & drugs, then your mental filter is set to read the story. Just read every other paragraph and you won't dwell on the insignificant. This book is unusual in that it is written by a native 30 yr Chinese who is on an extended tour starting in 1982 (p17); quite the opposite of a tourist book written by a round-eye.

His writing is really a rambling diary of his bumbling, dirt-cheap, 3-year vagabond tour around China, crashing on and bumming off of friends of other literary or journalist's friends. He is part writer / journalist, part photographer, part poet, part painter, but can't do anything very well (p42), other than shagging women in the same boat. Other women are quite wary of him. One laughs wryly, "The quickest way to commit suicide is to marry an artist (p215)."

His travels start from Beijing, west via train to the deserts of Qinghai, south to Chendu and east via the Yangtze river, then north to Xi'an and further to the Genghis ruins on the desolate Shaanxi steppes along the Yellow river. South through Sichuan and east to Qingdao his birthplace, south along the coast to Shanghai, Canton, Hainan, inland to the Yunnan minority regions, Golden Triangle, and finally Tibet. Certainly a long trek, some with humanity and much in solitary. The situations that he gets himself into can be interesting otherwise it's daily page filler. Sort of a DIY manual on how to hitch for a ride, how to sleep with a roof overhead, and how to sponge a cup of tea or meal off of dolting peasants.

Sometimes he tries amusing scams to earn some spending money, such as, becoming a street barber in Qinghai (p107), selling pot cleanser for tooth polish in Shaanxi (p199), and help setup a Yunnan minority peoples exhibition in Canton (p208) which of course is a desperate flop, as the Cantonese are much too busy making money to come.

There is a map of his travels on the inside F&B covers (HC), and there are 8 detailed map / drawings heading the chapters. There are no pictures in his book, even though he carries a camera through his trip. He carries the camera mainly to impress his credentials as a journalist (p272) to the local authorities, at least enough to get a meal and an overnight bed.

He spends some time in Chendu, to recharge, party with the local literati, and witness the new economy in western China. He talks to new graduate staffers that are slowly mutating into the cynics like himself (p141). Fleeing his shadow he continues his journey to sacred Buddhist sites (p156) and visits an infamous prison at Chongqing. He sees the posted executions list, which ironically reminds him of witnessing an execution who turns out to be of a former lover of his ex-wife (p160).

Once more, yearning for cleansing deprivation, he hikes north to Xi'an and the Yellow river of Inner Mongolia to visit the ageless ruins of past civilizations. Once more penniless, he drops in with the local literati, including a film studio and dance troupe, all local closet dissidents, and earns money as a magazine illustrator for a spell. He sees a museum of 2,300 stone tablets that chronicles classical Chinese history and philosophy (p170) and interviews recovering opium addicts in a state sanitarium (p177).

He visiting his parents, siblings, and birthplace in Qingdao (p205) by the Yellow Sea and he remembers his childhood and how he was a selfless disciple of Chmn Mao. Somehow he has mutated into a rebellious ne'er-do-well with a 7 year itch, who divorced his wife, child, and leaves a mistress who jilted him, to travel throughout China before escaping to the West probably under the guise of political persecution. He keeps in contact with everybody by letters and asks respondents to send them to his next friend-in-the-trade.

Of the redeeming factors for this effort is that you visit areas that no round-eye tourist would ever see or visit, let alone talk about. At the start in order to purge his bad thoughts of Chinese socialism, he walks across the Gobi Desert to see the buried ruins the Grotto of 10K Buddhas (p76). He endures a 1 week long dust storm, then suicidally sets out again, and nearly dies from thirst, crawls into a swollen salt lake; he almost becomes a relic as a tenderfoot walking the desert. Much later, he takes a bus into the Yunnan minority region jungles and learns about reusable burial grounds. He crawls through the jungle, sleeps in trees, and passes by aboriginal huts whose inhabitants are just afraid of him as he of they (p266). When he needs to cross a river in the rain, he finds a raft and single-handedly makes it across within an inch of his life (p276), then he has to climb out of the river gorge before nightfall...makes it to a village and is interrogated and house-arrested. He escapes and continues his journey to Tibet.

In Tibet, he tries to get close to Buddhism, visits with a Han who has exiled himself there and who has learned Tibetan. Now his sidekick, he tries to learn the ways of the monk, attends a sky burial (warning: very gross p311), makes a preposterous attempt at Mt Everest, and finally he drops as a hospital case of diarrhea & dehydration. Denouncing his vagrant life and exhausted from his trek and misery, finally cleansed and survived the privations of his spiritual pilgrimage (p 105), he returns to civilization.

Definitely a modern Chinese Don Quixote, Don Juan, and Dissident Don, he finally finds himself and tells us after recovering for 15 yrs in Hong Kong and London. He says that having money is the key to freedom (p105), yet having money is a quick route to Spiritual Pollution (p223). If you are looking for an existential view of China, then this book is for you, which I read at a local library.

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Red Dust on the Green Leaves
John Gay
Manufacturer: New World African Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0971769222

Product Description

Red Dust on the Green Leaves is the first in a series of books about of two boys growing to manhood in Liberia. One follows the white man's ways; the other immerses himself in his indigenous culture. It is about the clash of the modern and traditional. This book for the the Liberian experience is as important as the classic by Chinua Achebe "Things Fall Apart."

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Red Dust (Vietnam Ground Zero, No 13)
Eric Helm
Manufacturer: Gold Eagle
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0373627130

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Why isn't this an Oprah book pick?
Truth? Reconciliation?
Post Apartheid South Africa
Addressing the evils of Aparteid...
Superior Courtroom Thriller

Red Dust
Gillian Slovo
Manufacturer: Virago Press Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1860499155

Book Description

Only one person could have made successful prosecutor Sarah Barcant leave New York and return home to the rural town in South Africa she had fled years before: Ben. Once her mentor and inspiration, he has summoned her back to help him with one last case. Dirk Hendricks is also heading home. He is being driven, handcuffed, to the police station where he was once a deputy, there to meet his former prisoner, the man he tortured, Alex Mpondo. These three are drawn by the Truth Commission like a magnet back into their pasts, setting the stage for the moment of collision. But the real truth will be felt in the wings: in the fatal strain in a marriage, in the violated memory of a sweet son, and in a victim's understanding of his own complicity. Red Dust is Gillian Slovo's moving exploration of the intimacy of enemies and the consequences of truth.

Customer Reviews:

Why isn't this an Oprah book pick?.......2006-02-23

I actually had to read this novel for a literature class I am taking. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. As far as mysteries go, Slovo does a great job of pulling you along as she creates secrets and mysteries that you want to find the resolution to. I really enjoyed this and would recommend it to those who love a good mystery, especially.

Truth? Reconciliation?.......2006-02-09

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up in post-apartheid South Africa, enabled people who had been imprisoned for the crimes they had committed in apartheid times to secure an amnesty, provided they told the full truth about their activities to a court set up by the commission, presided over by judges and with perpetrators and victims represented by lawyers. This novel deals with one such case in a dusty little town called Smitsrivier.

Dirk Hendricks, a former policeman now imprisoned, had applied for amnesty in respect of his having severely tortured Alex Mpondo, now a member of Parliament. The powerful middle section of the novel is about the hearing of his case by the Commission. The tense confrontation between Hendricks and Mpondo in court is painful in the extreme. The burly Hendricks, who has been well-briefed by his lawyers and is in any case very familiar with court proceedings, who knows all about psychological weaknesses and is a shrewd actor to boot, is determined to conceal the full truth. Mpondo has for some years tried to bury the memories of what he has suffered, but now they surface and cripple him. Moreover, he is also crippled by something else (which I must not reveal in this review) which both he and Hendricks know but which Mpondo's constituents do not. There is also the undercurrent that the two men are bound to each other by a terrible kind of intimacy.

Closely interwoven with the Hendricks-Mpondo relationship is that between Pieter Muller, another ex-policeman, and James Sizela, a black headmaster, desperate to find the remains of his son Stephen whom Muller had killed. While Mpondo and Sizela are very different characters, Hendricks and Muller are, from a fictional point of view, perhaps a little too much alike; and the key confrontation between Muller and Sizela, though it is as tense as that between Hendricks and Mpondo and as powerfully written, struck me as being rather closer to melodrama than to drama. And although the game of bluff and double bluff that is played at the end of the book can be seen as an ironic commentary on the word "truth" in the title of the Commission, it also subtly, but I think unintentionally, shifts the novel from a profound exploration of the psychology of torturer and victim to an altogether slicker level of story-telling. But despite these reservations, I found this book so gripping that I stick with a five star rating.

Lastly, a few words about Sarah Barcant, Mpondo's lawyer. She had been born in Smitsrivier and had been trained there as a lawyer; but fourteen years ago, during the apartheid period, she had left for New York. One of the many excellent qualities of the book is her awareness of how much has changed in South Africa during her absence - and how much has not: in particular the eternal landscape of South Africa, its light and its scents, which are wonderfully conveyed. At the end the question is posed whether she had been a New York lawyer for so long that she never really understands what (in the author's view, I think) the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was, and what it was not and could not be.

Post Apartheid South Africa.......2005-02-28

Sarah Barcant is a successful young lawyer in New York who grew up in Smitrivier, South Africa. One day she gets a call from Ben Hoffman, a retired lawyer who used to be Sarah's professional mentor, asking her to come back to Smitrivier to take up a case. And so after fourteen years, Sarah returns to the town where she grew up to do Ben a favour because she thinks she owes him so much. A policeman, Pieter Muller, is suspected of having killed James Sizela's son Steve during the Apartheid. Muller's culpability has been a belief in Smitrivier for thirteen years, ever since Steve was arrested on Pieter Muller's orders and then disappeared. So now the Truth Commission is James's last chance to find his son's body and have him properly buried. The timing appears to be perfect since the Truth Commission is about to deal with the jailed policeman Dirk Hendricks who applied for amnesty for the torture of Alex Mpondo, now an MP in the South African government. The plan is to use Alex Mpondo's presence at the hearing to threaten Hendricks that unless he reveals Pieter Muller's complicity in the murder of Steve Sizela, he may not get his amnesty. But the search for the truth is going to be far more arduous than Sarah imagined - perhaps even an impossible task.
Mrs Slovo casts a merciless look at contemporary South Africa where heroism and perfidy are no longer distinct, where new truths are as painful as old lies, where torturers, once heroes, are now victims. An excellent novel which shows the absurd relationship between aggressors and victims and the power between the torturers and the tortured.

Addressing the evils of Aparteid..........2003-04-19

Since 1985, during The Emergency that tore open the façade of apartheid in South Africa, the citizens of the township of Smitsrivier have waited for the Truth Hearings. The hearings are scheduled to facilitate the amnesty of political prisoners, usually former policemen and other government agents who perpetrated violence against the blacks. In return for telling all of the circumstances of torture and other brutality, including murder, the Commission will decide whether to allow amnesty for each current appeal.

The central figure of the Truth Commission in this case is Dirk Hendricks, a former policeman applying for amnesty for the beating and torture of Alex Mpondo. Hendricks is the critical link between Mpondo and Steve Sizela, Alex's compatriot, who was also arrested and beaten, only Steve's body was never recovered. Alex holds the key to Steve's murder, but has been unable to remember anything clearly since his beating, whether Hendricks participated in Steve's murder or has knowledge of who actually did the deed. Alex engages in a dangerous dance with his tormentor, allowing Hendricks to prick his memory with questions and insinuations, hoping to remember. At issue is Alex's participation without allowing his further victimization.

A successful young New York lawyer, Sarah Barcant, is summoned to Smitsrivier to manage Alex's case. Her mentor, Ben Hoffman, who is dying, places a phone call requesting her help. He knows he cannot be refused, due to the ties of the past. Sarah and Ben hope, as part of the process, to uncover Steve's murderer and ascertain where he is buried, that his still grieving parents may see their son properly interred.

Using Sarah as a vehicle, Alex confronts Dirk Hendricks, willing to suffer the indignity of facing his tormentor all over again when they are face to face. But Alex is outraged when Hendricks declares himself a sufferer of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder while "doing his job", a critical factor in Hendricks' defense. Hendricks assumes the mantle of victim, giving a brilliant performance before the Committee while on the witness stand. Sarah's task, given Alex's newly awakening insights, is to unmask the policeman for the monster that he really is. This will necessitate drawing out the personality Hendricks seeks to hide from his audience, the darkness waiting to surface.

The denouement of the murderer and restoration of Steve Sizela's body to his parents serve to begin a healing process in only one of the towns so devastated by long years of apartheid, a land too long immersed in fear and hatred. Racial tension and animosity still exist in Smitsrivier, where black and white exist side by side, but in a more subtle and insidious form. Yet Slovo's South Africa is a gorgeous and fascinating country, ripe with promise, reaping the rewards of a revolution against inequality and repression of the human spirit. The task is to harness that great source of humanity for the good of a country whose past cannot be allowed to govern the future. The idyllic prose is as rich as this vast land in transition, an important contribution toward the understanding of a new South Africa. Luan Gaines/2003.

Superior Courtroom Thriller.......2002-09-17

This is an excellent courtroom thriller about torturers and victims confronting each other in the context of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The plotting is superb and the story has enough twists and turns to hold the reader's interest all the way to the surprise ending(s). Certain passages -- and one key scene -- are overly cinematic but this doesn't seriously detract from the book's pleasures. That said, Red Dust is not Dostoevesky. The characters all speak alike (whether white or black, English or Afrikaaner), whites are more finely drawn than blacks, and the protagonist -- a South African practicing law in the US -- is the least necessary character in the book (basically, she gets in arguments). Disappointingly, Slovo doesn't provide much social context or use the novel to educate readers about the liberation struggle in South Africa.

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Red-Dirt Jessie
Anna Myers
Manufacturer: Puffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 014038734X

Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography

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DREARY BEYOND BELIEF
Wasn't That a Time!

Red Dust and Broadsides: A Joint Autobiography
Agnes Cunningham , and Gordon Friesen
Manufacturer: University of Massachusetts Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1558492100

Customer Reviews:

DREARY BEYOND BELIEF.......2007-01-23

OKAY, I GAVE THIS BOOK 5 STARS, NOT BECAUSE IT WAS A GOOD BOOK, IT WAS NOT, BUT BECAUSE I REALLY WANT PEOPLE TO READ IT. I GREW UP WITH PEOPLE LIKE "SIS" CUNNINGHAM AND GORDON FRIESEN AND WAS MYSELF ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN MANY OF THE SAME MOVEMENTS DISCUSSED. I AM AN OLD MAN AND CAN LOOK BACK WITH SOME AMOUNT OF OBJECTIVITY. YES, WE HIT UPON CAUSES THAT WERE JUST AND MADE COMPLETE SENSE. WHO WOULDN'T TRY TO STOP LYNCHINGS, RACISM, CORRUPTION IN POLITICS AND CORRUPTION IN BIG BUSINESS AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE POOR, ESPECIALLY IN RURAL AREAS. AT THE SAME TIME THESE PEOPLE WERE IN EFFECT ORGANIZERS FOR THE COMMUNIST PARTY AND THEIR AVOWED PURPOSE, WHICH IS HISTORICAL FACT, WAS THE OVERTHROW OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM AND IN EFFECT THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. THEY WERE PROFESSIONAL TROUBLEMAKERS, NOT PARTICULARLY INTELLIGENT,OR HISTORICALLY CENTERED, WHO REALLY CARED MORE ABOUT THE "MOVEMENT" OR "REVOLUTION" THAN THE PEOPLE THEY PURPORTED TO BE HELPING. THEIR ETHICS WERE AT BEST AMORAL AND LYING OR CRIMINAL ACTS TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR ENDS WERE TOTALLY JUSTIFIED. I WAS THERE, I KNOW. IT IS A DREARY, BORING, DEPRESSING ACCOUNT OF SOCIAL MALCONTENTS AND MISFITS WHO PROJECTED THEIR OWN MISERY ON THE ENTIRE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE. IMAGINE THESE PEOPLE BEING IN CONTROL AND IMAGINE HOW MUCH FUN IT WOULD BE TO LIVE IN A SOVIET STYLE STATE. READ THE BOOK, IT WILL SCARE YOU, OR AT LEAST IT SHOULD.

Wasn't That a Time!.......2001-01-18

After 55 years of intense and rabid anti-communism, most people can be excused for accepting the old cliches about American Communists: dour, unfeeling and fanatical in their devotion to Moscow's orders. This joint autobiography of Agnes (Sis) Cunningham and Gordon Frieson shows us that, instead, Communists tended to be pretty much like all of us. Driven by a desire to create a better America and repelled by the "everything's for sale" attitude of the two main political parties, they labored through poverty, blacklisting, lynch mobs and government sabotage towards that better America. And they did it all with a song on their lips and in their hearts. An excellent book for those who want to know more about a period when only the very brave questioned the government and the system we live under.

Nineteen Eighty-four (First American Edition, Red Dust Jacket)

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Nineteen Eighty-four (First American Edition, Red Dust Jacket)
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Red River Dust: True Tales of an American Yesterday,

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Red River Dust

Red River Dust: True Tales of an American Yesterday,
Eugene W Bowers , Evelyn Oppenheimer , and Frank X. Tolbert
Manufacturer: Word Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Customer Reviews:

Red River Dust.......2006-05-27

From original source material here is the full-flavored taste of frontier Americana - true stories of human drama when men and women made Red River Valley the jumping-off place to adventure.

Lawyers, judges, teachers, preachers, doctors, steamboat captains, planters, slaves, merchants, actors, renegades, soldiers, and the ladies all combined to pioneer a new land and a new way of life when they first crossed the Red River a century ago.

Stories told with verve and flair just as they happened in their moment of history.
--- from book's dustjacket.

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Red Dust
Ma Jian
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0099283298

Book Description

The fascinating story of a young man’s disillusionment with the Communist system and his journey around China in search of himself and his country.

“My painter friends think I am a die-hard conservative, my writer friends think I am a man of loose morals. In Jushlin Temple I am a quiet disciple; in the Propaganda Department I am a decadent youth. Women call me a cynical artist, the police call me a hooligan. Well, they can think what they like. I only have 20,000 days left to live.”

Lots of Chinese women have given us their stories – now Ma Jian tells us of his overwhelming desire, in 1983 at the age of 30, to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. All around him China was changing. Den Xiaoping was introducing economic reform but clamping down on “Spiritual Pollution” – rebellious young people. With his long hair, denim jeans and artistic friends, Ma Jian was under surveillance from his work unit and the police. His ex-wife was seeking custody of their daughter; his girlfriend was sleeping with another man; and he could no longer find the inspiration to write or paint. One day he bought a train ticket to the westernmost border of China and set off in search of himself. Ma Jian’s journey would last three years and take him to deserts and overpopulated cities, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquility and beauty.

The result is an utterly unique book; an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both an insider and an outsider in his own country could have written.

Red Dust: Autobiographies of Chinese Communists

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Red Dust: Autobiographies of Chinese Communists
Nym Wales
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Chinese | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000O7WEGC

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