Book

Liao, Yiwu, 1958-

The corpse walker : real life stories, China from the bottom up / Liao Yiwu ; translated from the Chinese, by Wen Huang.

1st ed.

New York : Pantheon Books, 2008.

©2008

xiv, 320 pages ; 25 cm

A compilation of twenty-seven extraordinary oral histories that opens a window, unlike any other, onto the lives of ordinary, often outcast, Chinese men and women. Liao Yiwu (one of the best-known writers in China because he is also one of the most censored) chose his subjects from the bottom of Chinese society: people for whom the "new" China--the China of economic growth and globalization--is no more beneficial than the old. Here are a professional mourner, a trafficker in humans, a leper, an abbot, a retired government official, a former landowner, a mortician, a feng shui master, a former Red Guard, a political prisoner, a village teacher, a blind street musician, a Falun Gong practitioner, and many others--people who have been battered by life but who have managed to retain their dignity, their humor, and their essential, complex humanity. Liao's interviews were given from 1990 to 2003.--From amazon.com.

Working class -- China.

Social structure -- China.

Huang, Wen, translator.

"This translation composed of ten new piees and sixteen pieces that were originally published in Chinese in Taiwan as part of 'Interviews with People from the Bottom Rung of Society, ' published by Rye Field Publishing Co., Taipei, in 2002"--Colophon.

Translated from the Chinese.

The professional mourner -- The human trafficker -- The public restroom manager -- The corpse walkers -- The leper -- The peasant emperor -- The Feng Shui master -- The Abbot -- The composer -- The rightist -- The retired official -- The former landowner -- The Yi district chief's wife -- The village teacher -- The mortician -- The neighborhood committee director -- The former red guard -- The counterrevolutionary -- The Tiananmen father -- The Falun gong practitioner -- The illegal border crosser -- The grave robber -- The safecracker -- The blind Erhu player -- The street singer -- The sleepwalker -- the migrant worker.

Table of contents

2007034160

9780375425424

037542542X

370812388

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212790

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362.85 Liao