The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan
More Stories of China
Published on 18. June 2013
Book
Hardback
184 pages
978-0-231-16090-2 (ISBN)
Description
The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan moves between anarchic campuses, maddening communist factories, and the victims of China's economic miracle to showcase the absurdity, injustice, and socialist Gothic of everyday Chinese life. In "The Football Fan," readers fall in with an intriguingly unreliable narrator who may or may not have killed his elderly neighbor for a few hundred yuan. The bemused antihero of "Reeducation" is appalled to discover that, ten years after graduating during the pro-democracy protests of 1989, his alma mater has summoned him back for a punitive bout of political reeducation with a troublesome ex-girlfriend. "Da Ma's Way of Talking" is a fast, funny recollection of China's picaresque late 1980s, told through the life and times of one of our student narrator's more controversial classmates; while "The Apprentice" plunges us into the comic vexations of life in a more-or-less planned economy, as an enthusiastic young graduate is over-exercised by his table-tennis-fanatic bosses, deprived of sleep by gambling-addicted colleagues, and stuffed with hard-boiled eggs by an overzealous landlady.
Full of acute observations, political bite, and piercing insight into friendships and romance, these stories further establish Zhu Wen as a fearless commentator on human nature and contemporary China.
Full of acute observations, political bite, and piercing insight into friendships and romance, these stories further establish Zhu Wen as a fearless commentator on human nature and contemporary China.
Reviews / Votes
Zhu's quirky rogue's gallery is both entertaining and revealing, as murderers ('The Football Fan') and apostates (all the rest) illuminate the volatile period that preceded contemporary China's espousal of capitalist enterprise-if not democratic reform. Publishers Weekly Zhu Wen's plotting is brilliant, and his writing is cinematic and evocative. These eight stories are both funny and complex, and offer a true insight into the life of the modern Chinese. -- Tom Zelman Star Tribune This collection of dark tales by Zhu Wen offers an unflinching social commentary on post-communist China, though it could as easily be read as that of universal human nature. -- Su Hsing Loh Asian Review of Books A fascinating, often bleakly amusing, snapshot of China's urban anomie. -- Sam Sacks The Wall Street Journal A solid, well-written collection... [that] certainly offers some interesting glimpses of life in modern China. Worthwhile. -- M.A.Orthofer The Complete Review Sly humor... suffuses these stories, which, unlike some of the lives [Zhu Wen] describes, are never dreary. -- Alison McCulloch The New York Times Book Review [The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan] will appeal to readers looking for a more vivid, more human picture of modern China... Funny and inventive. -- David Wolf Prospect Compelling and entertaining. -- Jeffrey Wasserstrom Los Angeles Review of Books A hilarious, touchingly candid look at modern urban China. -- Farisa Khalid PopMatters Zhu Wen offers a quick, observant account of contemporary Chinese society. World Literature TodayMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
<B>6 illus.</B>
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-231-16090-2 (9780231160902)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2016
Columbia University Press
€22.27
Shipment within 10-20 days
E-Book
11/2015
1st Edition
Columbia University Press
€18.95
Available for download
Persons
Zhu Wen is also the author of I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China. In Chinese, he has published several additional short story and poetry collections and one novel and has directed four films, including Seafood (2001), which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and South of the Clouds (2004), which won the NETPAC Prize at the Berlin Festival. He lives in Beijing. Julia Lovell teaches modern Chinese history and literature at Birkbeck, University of London.
Content
A Note About Chinese Names and Romanization Acknowledgments Da Ma's Way of Talking The Matchmaker The Apprentice The Football Fan Xiao Liu Mr. Hu, Are You Coming Out to Play Basketball This Afternoon? Reeducation The Wharf