RAS BOOK CLUB
Monday, 17 February 2014 at 7:00 pm
Venue: glo London (3/F, VIP Room or Lounge)
1 Wulumuqi, near Dongping Lu (across from American Consulate)
上海高乐英餐饮有限公司
上海市乌鲁木齐南路一号甲
The RAS Book Club will meet to discuss:
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
Author: Yu Hua
Translator: Andrew F. Jones
Publisher: Pantheon Books
ISBN: 1-4000-3185-0
Publication Date: 9 November 2004
272 pages
Copies of the book will be available at RAS events prior to this meeting. You may also obtain a copy of the book by contacting the RAS Book Club (see below).
Entrance: RMB 70.00 (RAS Members) and RMB 100.00 (non-members) including a drink (tea, coffee, soft drink, or glass of wine). Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption, prior to this RAS Book Club event. Member applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.
N.B. RESERVATIONS ESSENTIAL AS SPACE IS LIMITED AT THIS EVENT.
THE BOOK (Powell’s Books)
A soaring literary achievement from internationally acclaimed writer Yu Hua, whose novels are now appearing in English for the first time. Chronicle of a Blood Merchant provides an unflinching portrait of China under Chairman Mao, as a factory worker must sell his blood to overcome every crisis.
Xu Sanguan is a Chinese everyman—a cart-pusher in a silk mill struggling under the cruelty and hardships of Mao’s leadership. His meager salary is not enough to sustain his family, so he pays regular visits to the local blood chief, followed by stops at the Victory Restaurant, where he pounds on the table and demands his ritual meal: “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine. And warm the wine up for me.”
But fried pork livers and yellow rice wine are not enough to restore Xu Sanguan. With the country in the throes of the Cultural Revolution, his visits to the blood chief become lethally frequent and his obligations to his family press against him mercilessly. At the height of famine, the Xu family lies motionless in bed, rising twice a day to consume increasingly watery rations of corn gruel. Xu Sanguan’s wife is forced to stand on a stool in the center of town wearing a sandwich board that reads “prostitute.” Yile, his wife’s bastard son, forever haunts Xu Sanguan’s sense of honor. And when Xu Sanguan sells his blood so he can take his family out to a proper meal, he does not invite Yile, who paces the town, famished and in tears, offering himself as a son to any man who will buy him a bowl of noodles.
In a series of heartbreaking reversals, Xu Sanguan decides to risk his own life to save Yile and comes to understand that in a society ravaged by suspicion, hostility, and poverty, blood money not only pays debts, but forgives them as well. With rare emotional intensity, grippingly raw descriptions of place and time, and clear-eyed compassion, Yu Hua gives us a stunning tapestry of human life in the grave particulars of one man’s days.
THE AUTHOR (Wikipedia)
Yu Hua is a Chinese author; born April 3, 1960 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. He practiced dentistry for five years and later turned to fiction writing in 1983 because he didn't like "looking into people’s mouths the whole day." Writing allowed him to be more creative and flexible. He grew up during the Cultural Revolution and many of his stories and novels are marked by this experience. One of the distinctive characteristics of his work is his penchant for detailed descriptions of brutal violence.
Yu Hua has written four novels, six collections of stories, and three collections of essays. His most important novels are Chronicle of a Blood Merchant and To Live. The latter novel was adapted for film by Zhang Yimou. Because the film was banned in China, it instantly made the novel a bestseller and Yu Hua a worldwide celebrity.