Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press
“A rare, richly detailed, and insightful account of life in a Chinese village during the tumultuous decade of post-Mao reforms. With earthy language and bawdy humor, Jia convincingly describes the enduring values that dominate the peasant psyche and social relations in China’s countryside.” –Ann Scott Tyson, The Christian Science Monitor
In this dazzling, earthy novel Jia Pingwa presents an unforgettable chronicle of rural China, a world at once utterly alien and uncannily familiar. Turbulence follows the lives of two peasants, Golden Dog and Water Girl, through the post-Mao years and sets their star-crossed love for each other against the political upheavals of China itself. Pitted against the bureaucracy that hamstrings modern China, Golden Dog winds through a fascinating cast of revolutionary cadres, bureaucrats, fortune-tellers, blacksmiths, farmers, and artisans. Part epic story, part love story, part political parable, Turbulence places the reader in a world where the I Ching exists alongside The Thoughts of Chairman Mao. Yet the sheer humanity of the novel transcends both cultural and political differences and makes it stunningly resonant to our own culture.
“A rare, richly detailed, and insightful account of life in a Chinese village during the tumultuous decade of post-Mao reforms. With earthy language and bawdy humor, Jia convincingly describes the enduring values that dominate the peasant psyche and social relations in China’s countryside.” –Ann Scott Tyson, The Christian Science Monitor
“[A] subtle, sinuous tale set in rural China in the 1980s–an epic of plain river people coping with incessant government meddling in their daily affairs . . . Impressive and revealing.” –Kirkus Reviews
“This ambitious novel depicts the struggles of Chinese peasants during the “80s, when the People’s Republic began shifting toward a market economy.” –Publishers Weekly
Winner of the Pegasus Prize for Literature
An Independent Literary Publisher Since 1917
