Jonathan Mirsky
Sore Feet, Heavenly Eyes
China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation
By Xinran (Translated by Esther Tyldesley, Nicky Harman and Julia Lovell)
Chatto & Windus 435pp £20
I have never reviewed three books by the same author for Literary Review until now. In 2002 I wrote of Xinran’s first book, The Good Women of China, which was based on her interviews during a call-in radio programme she conducted in China, that it was the most eloquent account of the lives of Chinese women I had ever read. Two years later I found her second book, Sky Burial, disappointing; it was based on a two-day interview with a Chinese woman who recalled in minute detail events in Tibet decades earlier – and then vanished. So, after two other books I haven't read, how is Xinran doing?
Very well. This is another excellent book, and is more ambitious than the first because Xinran had actively to set up the dozen or so interviews within it. The women in the first book, after all, had called Xinran's station and could speak anonymously if they wanted. Interviewees in China
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk