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Half of Man Is Woman
Poet Zhang Yonglin is sentenced to a labor camp he ironically describes as a haven amidst the hysteria of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. After he marries a woman he had seen eight years earlier, the story becomes, on one level, an analogy between his temporary sexual impotence and the position of intellectuals. A year later he is ready to abandon his wife and escape from the camp. Cameo appearances by philosophic and literary figures (Marx and Meng-tz, Othello and Song Ji) and discussing China and sex allow the incorporation of non-novelistic elements while indulging in gallows humor.
285 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
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About the author
Zhang Xianliang
48 books15 followersZhang Xianliang (Chinese: 张贤亮; December 1936 – 27 September 2014) was a Chinese author and poet, and former president of the China Writer Association in Ningxia. He was detained as a political prisoner during the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957, until his political rehabilitation in 1979. His most well known works, including Half of Man is Woman and Grass Soup, were semi-autobiographical reflections on his life experiences in prison and in witnessing the political upheaval of China during the Cultural Revolution.
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November 16, 2025
مثقف صيني يعتقل بسبب أفكاره و يقضي في السجن عشرون عاما في الأعمال الشاقة
بعد خروجه يتعرض لما يسمى إعادة التأهيل و هو تحديد إقامته في مكان ما بمعرفتهم مع عمله في أعمال متدنية بأجر زهيد لإعادة دمجه كعضو صالح في المجتمع
فوق. سماء زرقاء صافية. و تحت. مساحات خضراء داكنة شفافة عميقة رائعة الجمال. و بين الإثنين. كانت صفوف سوداء مسحوقة من المخلوقات البشرية.
مجموعة أعمال ماركوس و أنجلز الكاملة. كانت هذه الكتب الوحيدة التي يسمح لي بعرضها على أنظار العالم. بعد ثمانية عشر عاما من الأعمال الشاقة حظيت أخيرا برف الكتب. في مساحة تبلغ 9.6 مليون كم مربع (مساحة الصين) صار بوسعي أخيرا أن أقول إني حظيت منها بمتر مربع خاص بي.يتزوج سجينة سابقة مثله ليواجها الحياة و لكن الأمور لم تكن على ما يرام أبدا
طوال السنوات العشر الأخيرة كانوا على استعداد تام لتوقيف آلاف الأبرياء على أمل القبض على مجرم حقيقي واحد و مع ذلك لم يطلقوا سراح سجين واحد من بين كل هؤلاء الأبرياء.عندما تتحسن الأمور و يحقق بطولته الموعودة يواجه واقعه و يقرر أن يكون حرا و إن ليوم واحد فقط
إن المرء يعزي نفسه أحيانا بالبطولة بغض النظر عما إذا كان قد توسلها لإنقذ نفسه قبل إنقاذ الأخرين.الرواية مأخوذه عن السيرة الذاتية للكاتب نفسه و بها تصوير للحياة البائسة التي عاشها المثقفون في الصين منذ ما عرف بالثورة الثقافية الكبرى و حتى بداية الثمانينات من القرن العشرين
لعله عبر العزاء الذي كنت أحاول إقناع نفسي به بقي لي بعض الأمل عله لا تزال هناك فرصة لإنقاذ نفسي.
بالكاد تمكنت من كبت الدموع في عيني. إنهم يتلاعبون بنا منذ ما يقرب من العشرين عاما و يستخدموننا في تجاربهم كمثل الخنازير الهندية. لقد خدعنا و دبرت لنا المكائد و الحيل. هل يعقل أننا بعد فشل التجارب و بعد أن أصبحنا على شفير الموت بتنا نفتقد الشجاعة حتى لنصرخ و نقول إننا نتألم؟ إن الشعب الخدر العاجز حتى عن الصراخ و الإعلان عن ألمه لهو شعب الأفضل له أن يموت.
March 6, 2022
في سنة 1957 كتب الشاعر والكاتب الصيني زانج جيانليانج قصيدة اعتبرتها السلطة تُعبر عن اليمينيين وأصبح زانج بعدها من أعداء الشعب, قضى أكتر من عشرين عام متنقلا بين السجن ومعسكرات الإصلاح بالعمل
السلطة الشيوعية في ذلك الوقت كانت تحاول القضاء على أي مظهر من مظاهر الفردية في التفكير أو العمل أو حتى التصرفات والمظهر العام, الناس صُنفت فئات وكان المثقف صاحب الفكر الحر المخالف يُعتبر من أعداء الثورة, وفي فترة الثورة الثقافية الصينية كان السجن ملاذ آمن بعيدا عما يحدث في الخارج من قتل وتخريب
صدر عفو عنه عام 1979 وبعد سنوات يحكي زانج من خلال بطل روايته زانج يونجلين عن أيام السجن الشاقة والعمل في حقول الأرز والمزارع الحكومية لتربية الخراف والخيول
تأملاته في الأحداث والناس, حنينه للحب وشوقه لوجود المرأة في حياته, وتعلقه بامرأة من السجينات وزواجه منها فيما بعد
أفكاره وقراءاته التي استطاع بها أن يحافظ على عقله وانسانيته, وتساؤلاته عن جدواها في ظل مجتمع يحكمه القمع
يربط الكاتب بين فقد حرية التفكير والإرادة والإبداع والحياة تبعا للأوامر, وبين الوهن النفسي والعجز الجسدي
رواية جميلة مكتوبة بأسلوب واعي وهادئ
السلطة الشيوعية في ذلك الوقت كانت تحاول القضاء على أي مظهر من مظاهر الفردية في التفكير أو العمل أو حتى التصرفات والمظهر العام, الناس صُنفت فئات وكان المثقف صاحب الفكر الحر المخالف يُعتبر من أعداء الثورة, وفي فترة الثورة الثقافية الصينية كان السجن ملاذ آمن بعيدا عما يحدث في الخارج من قتل وتخريب
صدر عفو عنه عام 1979 وبعد سنوات يحكي زانج من خلال بطل روايته زانج يونجلين عن أيام السجن الشاقة والعمل في حقول الأرز والمزارع الحكومية لتربية الخراف والخيول
تأملاته في الأحداث والناس, حنينه للحب وشوقه لوجود المرأة في حياته, وتعلقه بامرأة من السجينات وزواجه منها فيما بعد
أفكاره وقراءاته التي استطاع بها أن يحافظ على عقله وانسانيته, وتساؤلاته عن جدواها في ظل مجتمع يحكمه القمع
يربط الكاتب بين فقد حرية التفكير والإرادة والإبداع والحياة تبعا للأوامر, وبين الوهن النفسي والعجز الجسدي
رواية جميلة مكتوبة بأسلوب واعي وهادئ
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April 17, 2020The translator's introduction links the main character's impotence squarely to the political situation in China. Communism is bad, sexual impotence is symbolic of political impotence . And .
Anyway reading the translator's introduction turned me sour on the political symbol reading of the impotence motiv before I even started the text of the story itself. I just began to assume that the translator was from the USA and had to stress that communism was bad and that it is the leading cause of impotence in men just in case a single American began to believe in communism which no doubt would cause Wall Street to disappear in a cloud of irrelevance and cause Peter Pan to grow up and so on, and so forth. To be fair you can support the political impotence reading by reference to the conversation with the talking castrated horse (pp125-131 ) equally the reader maybe can be cautious about taking conversations between tired characters and talking horses at face value . Psychologically would it be surprising if the sexually impotent man casts around and projects responsibility on the political circumstances which are completely beyond his ability to influence?
Anyway what caught my attention was the tangled theme of nature and education. This is a closed circle of a book. At the beginning Nature is abundant, while man is both incomplete and outside of nature. However as we proceed we see that education is positioned in counterpoint to Nature, through education man is made unnatural. When the educated male man character discovers a naked woman bathing secluded by reeds he stands and watches his 'self-control' he contrasts with the Black Fox and the Black Ant the implication seems to be that a "natural" creature would have raped the woman, but due to education the man stands back and is merely a voyeur instead.
Later they marry and at the half way point of the book we reach the central point of impotence. I think the impotence made this a controversial book at the time of publication more so than the fact that the novel concerns characters in a prison farm . Chinese culture has perhaps become more prudish, or at least the dominant aspect of it today is shyer of personal matters than in pre-modern Chinese novels. After discussions with the aforementioned talking horse and a powerful bowl of ginger soup, ahem, rockets take off, trains race into tunnels, trumpets sound, and potency occurs. This is with about 2/5ths of the book remaining - if at home you are drawing a graph of this review then you will want to know that.
then we start to get the inversions and subversions of the imagery. In the beginning we are shown man in contrast to Nature, Nature is verdant, stiff reeds grow erect and tall in beds, while man is floppy and incapable of reproduction. This is the result of education, he thinks, which we are to understand as causing alienation from one's own physical nature also politics is making him wilt, well so he thinks. Once potency is achieved there is a dramatic switch - he blames his wife, her domesticity is constraining him, marriage is a prison. Finally the main character exercises potency and moves on, however now we see that Nature is dying. The efforts of the Party to have this semi-arid land close to the Yellow river put to cultivation are turning the landscape into a desert. Man is again opposite to Nature. He is full of life just as we see that spring is now abortive.
Going back to the title, the unacknowledged problem is that of division and identification; man vs Nature, Man vs woman, potency vs impotency, these divisions we see as running from the most intimate relationships through to politics which is about (from the perspective of prison) identifying the inappropriately or insufficiently revolutionary - creating division rather than unity. The title however asserts the opposite, if half of man is woman then fundamentally there is unity, not division. Division itself and identification are the alien and destructive processes.
This puts me in mind of the idea of no-self in Buddhism, and bearing in mind that a later book of the author was called My Bodhi Tree I wonder if the entire novel is a depiction of a man in a Buddhist Hell realm, in which case it is proper for everything to go wrong and be hellish.
The novel reminds me of an Andrei Platonov story The River Potudan which combines impotency in marriage during revolutionary times. I like the symbolic inversions and subversions in this novel , but I feel it is diluted by being over long, even though I did like the talking horse.
Anyway reading the translator's introduction turned me sour on the political symbol reading of the impotence motiv before I even started the text of the story itself. I just began to assume that the translator was from the USA and had to stress that communism was bad and that it is the leading cause of impotence in men just in case a single American began to believe in communism which no doubt would cause Wall Street to disappear in a cloud of irrelevance and cause Peter Pan to grow up and so on, and so forth. To be fair you can support the political impotence reading by reference to the conversation with the talking castrated horse (pp125-131 ) equally the reader maybe can be cautious about taking conversations between tired characters and talking horses at face value . Psychologically would it be surprising if the sexually impotent man casts around and projects responsibility on the political circumstances which are completely beyond his ability to influence?
Anyway what caught my attention was the tangled theme of nature and education. This is a closed circle of a book. At the beginning Nature is abundant, while man is both incomplete and outside of nature. However as we proceed we see that education is positioned in counterpoint to Nature, through education man is made unnatural. When the educated male man character discovers a naked woman bathing secluded by reeds he stands and watches his 'self-control' he contrasts with the Black Fox and the Black Ant the implication seems to be that a "natural" creature would have raped the woman, but due to education the man stands back and is merely a voyeur instead.
Later they marry and at the half way point of the book we reach the central point of impotence. I think the impotence made this a controversial book at the time of publication more so than the fact that the novel concerns characters in a prison farm . Chinese culture has perhaps become more prudish, or at least the dominant aspect of it today is shyer of personal matters than in pre-modern Chinese novels. After discussions with the aforementioned talking horse and a powerful bowl of ginger soup, ahem, rockets take off, trains race into tunnels, trumpets sound, and potency occurs. This is with about 2/5ths of the book remaining - if at home you are drawing a graph of this review then you will want to know that.
then we start to get the inversions and subversions of the imagery. In the beginning we are shown man in contrast to Nature, Nature is verdant, stiff reeds grow erect and tall in beds, while man is floppy and incapable of reproduction. This is the result of education, he thinks, which we are to understand as causing alienation from one's own physical nature also politics is making him wilt, well so he thinks. Once potency is achieved there is a dramatic switch - he blames his wife, her domesticity is constraining him, marriage is a prison. Finally the main character exercises potency and moves on, however now we see that Nature is dying. The efforts of the Party to have this semi-arid land close to the Yellow river put to cultivation are turning the landscape into a desert. Man is again opposite to Nature. He is full of life just as we see that spring is now abortive.
Going back to the title, the unacknowledged problem is that of division and identification; man vs Nature, Man vs woman, potency vs impotency, these divisions we see as running from the most intimate relationships through to politics which is about (from the perspective of prison) identifying the inappropriately or insufficiently revolutionary - creating division rather than unity. The title however asserts the opposite, if half of man is woman then fundamentally there is unity, not division. Division itself and identification are the alien and destructive processes.
This puts me in mind of the idea of no-self in Buddhism, and bearing in mind that a later book of the author was called My Bodhi Tree I wonder if the entire novel is a depiction of a man in a Buddhist Hell realm, in which case it is proper for everything to go wrong and be hellish.
The novel reminds me of an Andrei Platonov story The River Potudan which combines impotency in marriage during revolutionary times. I like the symbolic inversions and subversions in this novel , but I feel it is diluted by being over long, even though I did like the talking horse.
June 29, 2012
(This is a true story. So if you don't like true stories then stop reading or, if you like them but prefer to read the originals and not mere reviews, then simply skip this one.)
Once upon a time, in China, during the time after Mao, people are arrested, jailed and placed in labour camps for all sorts of reasons, most of them unfathomable that many of them, outraged at the senselessness of it all, took their own lives. People get arrested for talking, for not talking, for singing, reading books, listening to the radio, telling jokes, for laughing at some inappropriate times, for being intelligent, or educated, or thinking his own thoughts, or having money.
The author was arrested, imprisoned, placed in labour camps and forced to do years and years of farm work because he wrote some poems. For his artistic expressions he was branded as a counter-revolutionary.
At 31 years of age he is still in one of these state farms. A labour camp guarded by soldiers. He lives with his fellow male counter-revolutionaries and those declared as misfits of the society. He's still a bachelor and a virgin. He has not known any woman, biblically, in his entire life.
One day, as fairy tales go, in a marsh, he hears a splashing noise. He thinks it might be a wild duck which he may be able to catch, cook, and have for dinner. But no. It's a young nymphet with a boyish short hair. Another one of Mao's worker for the revolution. A woman. Completely naked. Bathing.
He watches. She finishes. She picks up her underwear and sees him. He doesn't know what to do. The first naked woman before his very eyes. He ran away.
The next day he sees her marching to some place with the group of female prisoners. She recognizes him. She menacingly lifts the sharp scythe she is holding and tells him, as she walks, "If I could, I would butcher you." He wasn't able to say anything to her.
They didn't see each other for eight (8) years after that. She, Huang Xianjiu, was transferred to another labour camp. In those eight years he never stopped thinking of her, she whose only words to him, as he keeps on recalling the tone of her voice, was about her butchering him if she could.
He talks to the ghost of a girl who killed herself rather than be forced into marriage. He talks to her about love and life. He wonders why he keeps on thinking about that girl Xianjiu. It can't be love for he does not know it. Or not anymore. For many years of privations and suppressed desires, day in and day out, he has been only with men, animals and the various manual tasks assigned to them. The planting and the harvesting, the tending of the sheep, pasturing the horses.
"Pure love, the fear and trembling of first love, the fragrance, the illusions of romance, where were they now? Eradicated by prison clothes. Eradicated by lining up, yelling out a number, being counted, marching to work. Snuffed out by bitter struggle. The physical needs of an animal were what remained. What frightened me was not that around us there were no women to love, but that if put to the test I could not have found love left in me. My emotions had grown as coarse as my skin...."
Then, after those eight years, in another labour camp, they see each other again. She has been twice divorced already, but childless. He is still a bachelor and a virgin. With no one else around in similar auspicious circumstances everyone thinks they are a good match. They themselves think so,even without any consideration of "love" deemed inexistent in such a stifling atmosphere of oppression. So they get married.
On their first night they discovered that he's impotent. His body wouldn't dance with his desire. The revolution has snuffed out even his libido. They were devastated.
In a few months, she succumbs to the wiles of a lustful party official. He, on the other hand, withdrawn and in pain, begins to talk to a castrated horse, Karl Marx himself (or his apparition) and some wise personages from Chinese antiquity.
But here I shall stop. For it is in this most strange and tragic of circumstances between man and wife that the reader shall be haunted by some of the tenderest moments of love which can be found in memoirs or autobiographical novels like this. No review, short of quoting the pertinent passages themselves, can do justice to the exhilarating prose of this poet-novelist Zhang Xianliang (and Martha Avery's brilliant translation) which whill leave your heart aquiver.
Once upon a time, in China, during the time after Mao, people are arrested, jailed and placed in labour camps for all sorts of reasons, most of them unfathomable that many of them, outraged at the senselessness of it all, took their own lives. People get arrested for talking, for not talking, for singing, reading books, listening to the radio, telling jokes, for laughing at some inappropriate times, for being intelligent, or educated, or thinking his own thoughts, or having money.
The author was arrested, imprisoned, placed in labour camps and forced to do years and years of farm work because he wrote some poems. For his artistic expressions he was branded as a counter-revolutionary.
At 31 years of age he is still in one of these state farms. A labour camp guarded by soldiers. He lives with his fellow male counter-revolutionaries and those declared as misfits of the society. He's still a bachelor and a virgin. He has not known any woman, biblically, in his entire life.
One day, as fairy tales go, in a marsh, he hears a splashing noise. He thinks it might be a wild duck which he may be able to catch, cook, and have for dinner. But no. It's a young nymphet with a boyish short hair. Another one of Mao's worker for the revolution. A woman. Completely naked. Bathing.
He watches. She finishes. She picks up her underwear and sees him. He doesn't know what to do. The first naked woman before his very eyes. He ran away.
The next day he sees her marching to some place with the group of female prisoners. She recognizes him. She menacingly lifts the sharp scythe she is holding and tells him, as she walks, "If I could, I would butcher you." He wasn't able to say anything to her.
They didn't see each other for eight (8) years after that. She, Huang Xianjiu, was transferred to another labour camp. In those eight years he never stopped thinking of her, she whose only words to him, as he keeps on recalling the tone of her voice, was about her butchering him if she could.
He talks to the ghost of a girl who killed herself rather than be forced into marriage. He talks to her about love and life. He wonders why he keeps on thinking about that girl Xianjiu. It can't be love for he does not know it. Or not anymore. For many years of privations and suppressed desires, day in and day out, he has been only with men, animals and the various manual tasks assigned to them. The planting and the harvesting, the tending of the sheep, pasturing the horses.
"Pure love, the fear and trembling of first love, the fragrance, the illusions of romance, where were they now? Eradicated by prison clothes. Eradicated by lining up, yelling out a number, being counted, marching to work. Snuffed out by bitter struggle. The physical needs of an animal were what remained. What frightened me was not that around us there were no women to love, but that if put to the test I could not have found love left in me. My emotions had grown as coarse as my skin...."
Then, after those eight years, in another labour camp, they see each other again. She has been twice divorced already, but childless. He is still a bachelor and a virgin. With no one else around in similar auspicious circumstances everyone thinks they are a good match. They themselves think so,even without any consideration of "love" deemed inexistent in such a stifling atmosphere of oppression. So they get married.
On their first night they discovered that he's impotent. His body wouldn't dance with his desire. The revolution has snuffed out even his libido. They were devastated.
In a few months, she succumbs to the wiles of a lustful party official. He, on the other hand, withdrawn and in pain, begins to talk to a castrated horse, Karl Marx himself (or his apparition) and some wise personages from Chinese antiquity.
But here I shall stop. For it is in this most strange and tragic of circumstances between man and wife that the reader shall be haunted by some of the tenderest moments of love which can be found in memoirs or autobiographical novels like this. No review, short of quoting the pertinent passages themselves, can do justice to the exhilarating prose of this poet-novelist Zhang Xianliang (and Martha Avery's brilliant translation) which whill leave your heart aquiver.
August 23, 2020
"Love is a net which takes patience to create."
Hopefully one day we'll move past that point where every work of Chinese fiction will be distanced from its political merits and judged merely on its aesthetics. Like novels from the Middle East, Chinese novels are blurbed and shat-outted by publishers by sheer dint of their polemical value in some half-baked, mostly imaginary cultural war. Like Half, a cursory look over the criticism of these works, mostly effusive and gushing, is effusive and gushing for all the wrong reasons. Yes, Zhang's works are semi-autobiographical and chronicle his time in and out of the Chinese prison system during the Cultural Revolution, but I think focusing solely on that tends to take away from the fact that this is also a novel about love. It's a love story set in a prison labor camp, between two prisoners, of varying guilt, who try to come to terms with their lot and each other and maybe, just maybe, love. Much of the novel is the narrator's attempts to come to grips with his impotence (physical and artistic) in a stifling, ever-shifting political environment that borders on the ridiculous, but also to come to terms with the fact that his wife might actually love him!
Well-composed and thoughtful with a nice dollop of surreality every once in a while (the narrator's horse acts as his psychiatric counselor) and a love story that challenges at every turn what that term might mean.
Hopefully one day we'll move past that point where every work of Chinese fiction will be distanced from its political merits and judged merely on its aesthetics. Like novels from the Middle East, Chinese novels are blurbed and shat-outted by publishers by sheer dint of their polemical value in some half-baked, mostly imaginary cultural war. Like Half, a cursory look over the criticism of these works, mostly effusive and gushing, is effusive and gushing for all the wrong reasons. Yes, Zhang's works are semi-autobiographical and chronicle his time in and out of the Chinese prison system during the Cultural Revolution, but I think focusing solely on that tends to take away from the fact that this is also a novel about love. It's a love story set in a prison labor camp, between two prisoners, of varying guilt, who try to come to terms with their lot and each other and maybe, just maybe, love. Much of the novel is the narrator's attempts to come to grips with his impotence (physical and artistic) in a stifling, ever-shifting political environment that borders on the ridiculous, but also to come to terms with the fact that his wife might actually love him!
Well-composed and thoughtful with a nice dollop of surreality every once in a while (the narrator's horse acts as his psychiatric counselor) and a love story that challenges at every turn what that term might mean.
July 9, 2011
Sometimes it's best when you come to an author or a novel with no expectations, no preconceived notions. So it was with me and Hsien-Liang Chang (also spelled Zhang Xianliang.) Never heard of him. I found the book in my local cafe's swap rack.
I was debating between three and four stars but went with 4 as I realized the novel had seeped into my unconscious mind, affecting me more than I'd thought. I'm certain last night's nightmare had everything to do with reading this book before bed... The book is not nightmarish, don't get me wrong, but somehow the events of the story (a man seeing a superior enter his home when his wife was there, knowing he was being cuckolded) led to my dream that I was living with my ex and he was having an affair with our son's friend's 16 yr-old-sister....ugh!
The novel, published in 1988, deals with post-Mao China and is unusual in that it also deals with sexuality...in this case, a 37 year old virgin male (he's been in prison and work camps since he was 18) and his longing for a woman, a fellow prisoner, whom he happens upon and whom (spoiler alert) he eventually marries. The subsequent marriage, the difficulties of living with a woman and domestic life, are convincingly and beautifully explored. The natural world, the landscape, is also rendered with beauty and passion. The books also features a talking horse and philosophical meditation. A rich and unusual novel, most likely autobiographical, one which I'm glad I chanced upon.
I was debating between three and four stars but went with 4 as I realized the novel had seeped into my unconscious mind, affecting me more than I'd thought. I'm certain last night's nightmare had everything to do with reading this book before bed... The book is not nightmarish, don't get me wrong, but somehow the events of the story (a man seeing a superior enter his home when his wife was there, knowing he was being cuckolded) led to my dream that I was living with my ex and he was having an affair with our son's friend's 16 yr-old-sister....ugh!
The novel, published in 1988, deals with post-Mao China and is unusual in that it also deals with sexuality...in this case, a 37 year old virgin male (he's been in prison and work camps since he was 18) and his longing for a woman, a fellow prisoner, whom he happens upon and whom (spoiler alert) he eventually marries. The subsequent marriage, the difficulties of living with a woman and domestic life, are convincingly and beautifully explored. The natural world, the landscape, is also rendered with beauty and passion. The books also features a talking horse and philosophical meditation. A rich and unusual novel, most likely autobiographical, one which I'm glad I chanced upon.
January 21, 2016
The story is semi autobiographical of Zhang, a ‘rightist’ poet who has been sent to a labor camp and ‘hatted’. It is also a story of China during the Cultural Revolution. Zhang meets Huang and falls in love with the image of her naked and bathing herself in the canes. Zhang has never had a relationship. She was jailed for promiscuity. The author lets us see China through their relationship. Zhang is like a emasculated man, his impotency would represent the impotency of the people. The novel is about survival and regaining self. It is lyrical and beautifully written. It was considered too vulgar to be sold in China and was banned. It really isn’t vulgar compared to many other works found in 1001 Books…..
The author was sent to a labor camp in 1957 in the anti-rightist movement. He was officially pardoned in 1979 and apparently is still alive and works as a writer in China. He is 76 years old. I read Wild Swans by Chang a few years back and I think reading this first makes this book even better.
The author was sent to a labor camp in 1957 in the anti-rightist movement. He was officially pardoned in 1979 and apparently is still alive and works as a writer in China. He is 76 years old. I read Wild Swans by Chang a few years back and I think reading this first makes this book even better.
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June 1, 2018A strange and dreamlike novel about the Cultural Revolution -- I suppose I was expecting something closer to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, I got the ghosts of Karl Marx and Mencius and talking horses (the sort of thing I normally adore). And a weirdly moving story about how people fall in love and how people get torn apart. And while I wasn't perhaps as moved as I was expecting to be, I was absolutely drawn into their world.
June 2, 2017
For me every book has a different taste as the every food we try in our world.
I felt that it was non stop soloquizing account of someone's life with unique pain, philosophy and uncertainty.
Main theme of the novel could be that how our political ideologies and personal life collide and leaves us broken.
That how hard is to understand each other when it comes to marital affairs.
A very complex and more like a personal catharsis.
I felt that it was non stop soloquizing account of someone's life with unique pain, philosophy and uncertainty.
Main theme of the novel could be that how our political ideologies and personal life collide and leaves us broken.
That how hard is to understand each other when it comes to marital affairs.
A very complex and more like a personal catharsis.
May 14, 2025
3.5 stars. An interesting novel set in China about individuals and relationships against a backdrop of political upheaval and social control. The story is about poet Zhang Yonglin who is sentenced to a labor camp that he ironically describes as a haven. In 1966 he inadvertently sees a young woman bathing nude. He finds out that she is Huang Xiangliu, twice divorced and a political prisoner charged with ‘male-female relations’ crime. Eight years later they meet again at a State Farm. Zhang Yonglin is involved his late 20s and a virgin. He finds out he is impotent and has negative feelings about marrying Huang Xiangliu. There is one point in his internal reflections that he is nearing the point of madness and he is visited by a talking horse and the ghost of Marx.
An original, worthwhile novel that felt a little clunky at times.
.
This book was first published in 1985.
An original, worthwhile novel that felt a little clunky at times.
.
This book was first published in 1985.
September 25, 2009
Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xiannliang was a bit of a disappointment for me. It was similar in many ways to the recently read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in that it describes the life of a Communist political prisoner. Except this prison is in China rather than Russia.
Similarities do not end merely at subject matter. Both writers were themselves political prisoners, so the books are authentic in theme. Both writers express similar feelings of how to survive these years in the system, and how they feel dehumanized in those conditions.
But whereas Ivan Denisovich compelled me to feel sympathetic for the character, Half of Man did not. In fact I found myself getting annoyed with the main character, as he had chances to make life better for himself and chose not to. Now I am all for upholding a moral code, but there is compromise that you can live with, that upholds moral ground and yet allows life.
What is missing in the main character is the realization that the best revenge is survival. Without that, any protest, any non-compromising attitude doesn't matter. You are dead. And dead can protest not at all.
Zhang Yonglin has a chance to have a happy married life, and he refuses to keep it because it does not allow him to express himself in writing for fear that it may come back and harm his wife. While a noble sentiment, he takes it even further and starts hurting his wife himself, so she will want to divorce. He wants to be free to criticize the government, and take their punishment, up to and including death. So instead of making some kind of peace, even as he can see a better government possibly coming up, he hurts his happiness and his wife's.
Part of my disappointment may have to do with my own faults as a reader. I may not quite be at ease with some of the Eastern philosophy that may color attitudes of the characters in this book, and I have less of an understanding of historical/political events that are discussed than I might have.
But while I found the story of trying to survive this dehumanizing system good, I found the internal struggle underwhelming.
Similarities do not end merely at subject matter. Both writers were themselves political prisoners, so the books are authentic in theme. Both writers express similar feelings of how to survive these years in the system, and how they feel dehumanized in those conditions.
But whereas Ivan Denisovich compelled me to feel sympathetic for the character, Half of Man did not. In fact I found myself getting annoyed with the main character, as he had chances to make life better for himself and chose not to. Now I am all for upholding a moral code, but there is compromise that you can live with, that upholds moral ground and yet allows life.
What is missing in the main character is the realization that the best revenge is survival. Without that, any protest, any non-compromising attitude doesn't matter. You are dead. And dead can protest not at all.
Zhang Yonglin has a chance to have a happy married life, and he refuses to keep it because it does not allow him to express himself in writing for fear that it may come back and harm his wife. While a noble sentiment, he takes it even further and starts hurting his wife himself, so she will want to divorce. He wants to be free to criticize the government, and take their punishment, up to and including death. So instead of making some kind of peace, even as he can see a better government possibly coming up, he hurts his happiness and his wife's.
Part of my disappointment may have to do with my own faults as a reader. I may not quite be at ease with some of the Eastern philosophy that may color attitudes of the characters in this book, and I have less of an understanding of historical/political events that are discussed than I might have.
But while I found the story of trying to survive this dehumanizing system good, I found the internal struggle underwhelming.
September 15, 2016
Half of Man is Woman is considered a very controversial book in China as it focuses on the labour camps Zedong set up during the sixties and also the novel features some sex scenes – which was unheard of at the time.
The book is about the author, who is a wrongly accused political prisoner, and his experience as a rice cultivator and a shepherd during Chairman Mao’s reign. However instead of descending into a litany of tortures and hardships Xianliang takes a different aspect and that is maintaining a serious relationship with someone in a camp.
When Xianlaing first sets his eyes on Huang he immediately falls in love with her and after an eight year gap he marries her, unfortunately the marriage does not work out due to the fact that he has been ingrained in the camp system for so long that nothing else seems to interest him, despite his wife’s efforts he does get a divorce.
Half of man is Woman is a political novel – but it goes on such a different tangent you’d mistake it for an overly dramatic love story, but through this catastrophic relationship Mao is clearly the one being criticised.
Personally I liked the book but I must admit the translation wasn’t too great and bothered me at times. Sayign that the content is so powerful that you do get sucked into the book. Anyway I haven’t read many Chinese authors so my second foray into their lit wasn’t a bad one at all.
The book is about the author, who is a wrongly accused political prisoner, and his experience as a rice cultivator and a shepherd during Chairman Mao’s reign. However instead of descending into a litany of tortures and hardships Xianliang takes a different aspect and that is maintaining a serious relationship with someone in a camp.
When Xianlaing first sets his eyes on Huang he immediately falls in love with her and after an eight year gap he marries her, unfortunately the marriage does not work out due to the fact that he has been ingrained in the camp system for so long that nothing else seems to interest him, despite his wife’s efforts he does get a divorce.
Half of man is Woman is a political novel – but it goes on such a different tangent you’d mistake it for an overly dramatic love story, but through this catastrophic relationship Mao is clearly the one being criticised.
Personally I liked the book but I must admit the translation wasn’t too great and bothered me at times. Sayign that the content is so powerful that you do get sucked into the book. Anyway I haven’t read many Chinese authors so my second foray into their lit wasn’t a bad one at all.
May 9, 2021
entre 3'5 y 4
April 7, 2022
I missed a large part of this story by not understanding the various movements and revolutions and counter-revolution. Yes, this is a love story, but it is in the context of Chinese "movements" and, at times, is overpowered by them.
August 9, 2019
This book was not immediately easy to read, but I eventually became sucked into the story and profoundly invested in the protagonist Zhang Yonglin, and his wife, Huang Xiangjiu. I am not the strongest reader of allegorical writing, and I’m sure there’s a ton of symbolism I missed, but I enjoyed this read nonetheless. I also feel like I’m always starting from a deficit when reading books about history or about politics written in the past. Growing up I was never a motivated student of history, but now it’s become more important to me to understand world history, and the major movements that of course still heavily impact the world today. I learned quite a bit while reading this book, as well as exposed a million more gaps in my understanding of China and the Cultural Revolution. I’m excited to channel that lack of knowledge into seeking more learning!
December 18, 2016
انها فقط غريزة النجاة و فطرة الadaptation
حيث لا تستطيع أن تتنفس، يمكنك البحث عن كل احتياجاتك..يمكنك ان تحقق كل أحلامك هناك.. مجرد ان تعيش..حلم..يمكنك تحقيقه هناك
كتاب يدور حول الصين و معكسرات الاعتقال و المناطق النائية و الشيوعية و تلفيق التهم.. و حب رجل و امرأة.. بصورة مكررة ..لكى تزداد تعقيدا لفهمك للمرأة...
حيث لا تستطيع أن تتنفس، يمكنك البحث عن كل احتياجاتك..يمكنك ان تحقق كل أحلامك هناك.. مجرد ان تعيش..حلم..يمكنك تحقيقه هناك
كتاب يدور حول الصين و معكسرات الاعتقال و المناطق النائية و الشيوعية و تلفيق التهم.. و حب رجل و امرأة.. بصورة مكررة ..لكى تزداد تعقيدا لفهمك للمرأة...
February 26, 2018
I was expecting something more like "One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich", but that's not what this book is. There are certainly a lot of passages that will give you a sense of what life was like as a dissident in China at a labor camp, but quite a bit more about what the country/culture were like at the time and what it was doing to people. It also has a very significant plot around marriage that looks at that institution in a very different way.
And there's a section where a horse talks. No, I'm not kidding (and it didn't ruin the book).
And there's a section where a horse talks. No, I'm not kidding (and it didn't ruin the book).
May 13, 2010
Zhang, Xianliang. Half of Man Is Woman. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988.
Casablanca in the Gulag
Zhang Yonglin is a Chinese Rick -- they probably would have fought on the same side during the Spanish Revolution in 1936, if Zhang had been there. But Zhang wasn't -- he was probably only born around then. By the time he had grown up, this sort of meritocratic freedom fighting was under attack in the Anti-Rightist Campaign. Zhang had been condemned, politically, socially and every other way, and sent to the first labor camps of those days, where he remained till 1966, when our story opens.
The inciting incident of "Half of Man is Woman" is boy sees girl, "Woman needs man/And man must have his mate./ That no one can deny." Zhang Yonglin, a virgin at 39 (picture a virgin Bogart! Sheesh!) is working in the fields one day when he sees -- a naked woman! He's so unbalanced he enters an amazing crisis punched into us via Zhang Xianliang's blockish prose. It is almost a coincidence that the very same year, a new political movement known as the Great Cultural Revolution is beginning. But after all, right, "It's still the same old story/ A fight for love and glory/A case of do or die."
The conceit of the story is that Zhang is working out his ideas about what life is all about in both his relationship with the woman and with his observations on the political events in the following years, 1968-1979. Like Rick, Zhang knows in the end that it's "a case of do or die," and makes the decision that determines his marriage and his very life.
Any reader who understands this work first and foremost as a documentary of life in China is a tremendous fool. First and foremost it is a great work of fiction, a crafted expression of a life, with turning points full of the interior thoughts of a man, including doubts, fears, desires and weaknesses. It probes just what would make a thinking man live through a dark night of turmoil that might last for decades, leaving a deep, national version of Stockholm's syndrome on the psyche. China here is the setting, no more.
Zhang's language throughout the book reminds me that story is about plot and character structure, not language. Zhang Yonglin, his girl, and the supporting cast with a wide range of fascinating subplots is a good story, but it is seldom a well-written one. It is crafted, but in a garish, earthy style that is often repugnant. Martha Avery would be sublime translating "Baotown" just after this, but writing in 1986-7 she seems certain of Zhang's importance as a story craftsman and yet unable to handle his clunky dialogue, flat jokes, and purplish landscape description, all of which feed into an terribly negative perspective on life that perhaps can't help but be enigmatic to the English reader. A debased pessimism pervades the work; the dialogic language is ponderous with black humor, with a scathing need to see the worst of everything. Avery has clearly understood the need to render this in English, but only hints are ever really visible.
I won't read this whole volume in Chinese, most likely, but you better believe I'm going to turn here when I want to practice the Chinese equivalent of "snark."
Casablanca in the Gulag
Zhang Yonglin is a Chinese Rick -- they probably would have fought on the same side during the Spanish Revolution in 1936, if Zhang had been there. But Zhang wasn't -- he was probably only born around then. By the time he had grown up, this sort of meritocratic freedom fighting was under attack in the Anti-Rightist Campaign. Zhang had been condemned, politically, socially and every other way, and sent to the first labor camps of those days, where he remained till 1966, when our story opens.
The inciting incident of "Half of Man is Woman" is boy sees girl, "Woman needs man/And man must have his mate./ That no one can deny." Zhang Yonglin, a virgin at 39 (picture a virgin Bogart! Sheesh!) is working in the fields one day when he sees -- a naked woman! He's so unbalanced he enters an amazing crisis punched into us via Zhang Xianliang's blockish prose. It is almost a coincidence that the very same year, a new political movement known as the Great Cultural Revolution is beginning. But after all, right, "It's still the same old story/ A fight for love and glory/A case of do or die."
The conceit of the story is that Zhang is working out his ideas about what life is all about in both his relationship with the woman and with his observations on the political events in the following years, 1968-1979. Like Rick, Zhang knows in the end that it's "a case of do or die," and makes the decision that determines his marriage and his very life.
Any reader who understands this work first and foremost as a documentary of life in China is a tremendous fool. First and foremost it is a great work of fiction, a crafted expression of a life, with turning points full of the interior thoughts of a man, including doubts, fears, desires and weaknesses. It probes just what would make a thinking man live through a dark night of turmoil that might last for decades, leaving a deep, national version of Stockholm's syndrome on the psyche. China here is the setting, no more.
Zhang's language throughout the book reminds me that story is about plot and character structure, not language. Zhang Yonglin, his girl, and the supporting cast with a wide range of fascinating subplots is a good story, but it is seldom a well-written one. It is crafted, but in a garish, earthy style that is often repugnant. Martha Avery would be sublime translating "Baotown" just after this, but writing in 1986-7 she seems certain of Zhang's importance as a story craftsman and yet unable to handle his clunky dialogue, flat jokes, and purplish landscape description, all of which feed into an terribly negative perspective on life that perhaps can't help but be enigmatic to the English reader. A debased pessimism pervades the work; the dialogic language is ponderous with black humor, with a scathing need to see the worst of everything. Avery has clearly understood the need to render this in English, but only hints are ever really visible.
I won't read this whole volume in Chinese, most likely, but you better believe I'm going to turn here when I want to practice the Chinese equivalent of "snark."
December 30, 2025
A really sad semi autobiographical tale of an intellectual making his way through various Chinese labour camps during the Cultural Revolution.
The sadness doesn't come from the conditions he finds himself in - for the most part he has enough to eat and has the respect of his fellow men. It comes from what the system has done to his mind and how that impacts his relationship with his eventual wife. He first sees her bathing naked in a rice field at the age of roughly 31 and it is the first time he has seen a naked female form. He keeps that memory with him for 8 years until he meets her again. As always such a long period of longing can't be matched in real life and he struggles to reconcile her life in-between (she has been married twice) and his - he is still a virgin when he marries.
Coupled with that is the way the system and then her make him feel emasculated and unable to feel completely free in her company and you have an unhappy marriage. Neither of them completely open up and although you get the impression there is love there on both sides you know it won't end well. He doesn't feel safe enough to talk about his philosophical thoughts and she tries to bind him to her by creating a cosy home which stiffles him further by the end of the book. There is a lovely passage towards the end which talks about homemade clothes as a way of binding two individuals together.
The author cleverly uses his impotence as a metaphor for his emasculation and it is only reversed by him undertaking a dangerous task for the good of the community he lives in and those around him. It doesn't completely solve his problems though as it frees his mind to start thinking more widely again.
Throughout it all you've got the background of various movements and the policies of the Chinese authorities.
These become somewhat of a joke between the various troop members.
The ending is sad as well as optimistic. He still believes in Marx and departs to follow his mind but leaves his love.
The sadness doesn't come from the conditions he finds himself in - for the most part he has enough to eat and has the respect of his fellow men. It comes from what the system has done to his mind and how that impacts his relationship with his eventual wife. He first sees her bathing naked in a rice field at the age of roughly 31 and it is the first time he has seen a naked female form. He keeps that memory with him for 8 years until he meets her again. As always such a long period of longing can't be matched in real life and he struggles to reconcile her life in-between (she has been married twice) and his - he is still a virgin when he marries.
Coupled with that is the way the system and then her make him feel emasculated and unable to feel completely free in her company and you have an unhappy marriage. Neither of them completely open up and although you get the impression there is love there on both sides you know it won't end well. He doesn't feel safe enough to talk about his philosophical thoughts and she tries to bind him to her by creating a cosy home which stiffles him further by the end of the book. There is a lovely passage towards the end which talks about homemade clothes as a way of binding two individuals together.
The author cleverly uses his impotence as a metaphor for his emasculation and it is only reversed by him undertaking a dangerous task for the good of the community he lives in and those around him. It doesn't completely solve his problems though as it frees his mind to start thinking more widely again.
Throughout it all you've got the background of various movements and the policies of the Chinese authorities.
These become somewhat of a joke between the various troop members.
The ending is sad as well as optimistic. He still believes in Marx and departs to follow his mind but leaves his love.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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December 18, 2024نصف الرجل امرأة : زانغ كزيليانغ
ترجمة ميرنا ابي نادر
مؤسسة الانتشار العربي ٣٧٣ صفحة ورقي
_ مأساة الصين تحت وطئة الشيوعية
_ عندما تكون البلاد في الجحيم فإن السجن هو السلام
_ حياة السجون والأعمال الشاقة
رغم التعب لكنهم كانوا افضل حالا في الحقول ، افتقدوا النساء والعائلة وحلموا بحضن دافئ و وجبة شهية
_ التربية وضبط النفس
_ في المعسكرات يتحول الإنسان إلى مخلوق مجرد من كل أحاسيسه ورغباته ، ومنفذ فقط لأوامر مكبرات الصوت .
اقتباسات
_ كانت الأخبار التي نقلها الي عبر صمته الطويل ، أجدى و أعمق من الكلام نفسه .
_ الحرية نسبية . إذا كان بمقدورك ، في أسوأ الحالات ، الحصول على جزء صغير منها ...
_ الجهل لا يمكن أن يكون أرضا خصبة للدفاع
_ ينبغي أن أكف عن التفكير وان اكون سجينا ليس إلا .
_ لهذا السبب انا أقرأ . حتى اكتشف كيفية تحقيق المساواة بين انسان وآخر .
_ لم تكن السرقة مدعاة للخجل
_ أجل كنا نعثر على أمور تضحكنا - والا كيف كان لنا الاستمرار في العيش في تلك الأيام الرهيبة ؟
_ حول السيء إلى ماهو افضل ، إن المستقبل لهو مجيد
_ بدخوله إلى المخيمات كان المرء ينمي مهارات لم يكن ليلحظ يوما أنه يمتلكها
- أدركت اني غير صالح لأكثر من الاحلام
الشخصيات
زانغ ، وانغ ، هوانغ كزيانغجيو
* توقفت عند الصفحة ٨٣ لم تجذبني القصة للمتابعة
��قلمي 📖🖋️ إيمان الحراكي
١١-١٢-٢٠٢٤
ترجمة ميرنا ابي نادر
مؤسسة الانتشار العربي ٣٧٣ صفحة ورقي
_ مأساة الصين تحت وطئة الشيوعية
_ عندما تكون البلاد في الجحيم فإن السجن هو السلام
_ حياة السجون والأعمال الشاقة
رغم التعب لكنهم كانوا افضل حالا في الحقول ، افتقدوا النساء والعائلة وحلموا بحضن دافئ و وجبة شهية
_ التربية وضبط النفس
_ في المعسكرات يتحول الإنسان إلى مخلوق مجرد من كل أحاسيسه ورغباته ، ومنفذ فقط لأوامر مكبرات الصوت .
اقتباسات
_ كانت الأخبار التي نقلها الي عبر صمته الطويل ، أجدى و أعمق من الكلام نفسه .
_ الحرية نسبية . إذا كان بمقدورك ، في أسوأ الحالات ، الحصول على جزء صغير منها ...
_ الجهل لا يمكن أن يكون أرضا خصبة للدفاع
_ ينبغي أن أكف عن التفكير وان اكون سجينا ليس إلا .
_ لهذا السبب انا أقرأ . حتى اكتشف كيفية تحقيق المساواة بين انسان وآخر .
_ لم تكن السرقة مدعاة للخجل
_ أجل كنا نعثر على أمور تضحكنا - والا كيف كان لنا الاستمرار في العيش في تلك الأيام الرهيبة ؟
_ حول السيء إلى ماهو افضل ، إن المستقبل لهو مجيد
_ بدخوله إلى المخيمات كان المرء ينمي مهارات لم يكن ليلحظ يوما أنه يمتلكها
- أدركت اني غير صالح لأكثر من الاحلام
الشخصيات
زانغ ، وانغ ، هوانغ كزيانغجيو
* توقفت عند الصفحة ٨٣ لم تجذبني القصة للمتابعة
��قلمي 📖🖋️ إيمان الحراكي
١١-١٢-٢٠٢٤
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August 6, 2020Good book.
It tells a story about survival in China during the rise of Mao, the cultural revolution, and the assault on the Intellectuals. It's the time when the country has gone into madness and people can get arrested for almost anything: for thinking and not thinking, for speaking and not speaking, for writing poems, for singing, for reading books, etc
One of his main themes is that China’s political system has desexed its population. It has not only instilled in its people profound distrust of one’s own relatives, but it has also castrated the will of people to stand up for themselves.
They have been made both mentally and physically impotent. In Half of Man is Woman, Zhang wondered if China’s entire intellectual community has not been emasculated
It tells a story about survival in China during the rise of Mao, the cultural revolution, and the assault on the Intellectuals. It's the time when the country has gone into madness and people can get arrested for almost anything: for thinking and not thinking, for speaking and not speaking, for writing poems, for singing, for reading books, etc
One of his main themes is that China’s political system has desexed its population. It has not only instilled in its people profound distrust of one’s own relatives, but it has also castrated the will of people to stand up for themselves.
They have been made both mentally and physically impotent. In Half of Man is Woman, Zhang wondered if China’s entire intellectual community has not been emasculated
February 28, 2024
This book had an incredible premise; An inmate who rekindles his passion for life when he accidentally observes a woman bathing. It sounded simple and easy to follow.
In reality, what waited for me between the pages is mostly a political critique of China in these dark days, and even though it was told in an understandable manner, it just wasn't what I started reading this book for.
Even though the romance parts were described beautifully, and Zhang's thoughts and honest feelings and passion truly have kept me going for a while, it always ended up coming back to characters having very long conversations about the cultural revolution, which frankly didn't really intrigue me as much.
Very well written, but you need a lot of patience if you came in expecting to find a love story.
In reality, what waited for me between the pages is mostly a political critique of China in these dark days, and even though it was told in an understandable manner, it just wasn't what I started reading this book for.
Even though the romance parts were described beautifully, and Zhang's thoughts and honest feelings and passion truly have kept me going for a while, it always ended up coming back to characters having very long conversations about the cultural revolution, which frankly didn't really intrigue me as much.
Very well written, but you need a lot of patience if you came in expecting to find a love story.
May 4, 2024
ادھورے مرد ایک چینی ناول ہے۔ چین کے ثقافتی انقلاب کے پس منظر میں یہ لکھا گیا ہے۔ مرکزی کردار ہی کہانی کو بیان کرتا ہے۔ انقلاب کو روکنے کے جرم میں لیبر کیمپ میں بطور سزا بھیج دیا جاتا ہے۔ یہاں اسکی قید کی مشقتوں کا احوال ہے۔ اور جب سزا پوری ہوتی ہے تو یہ معاشرے اور گھر کے لئے ادھورا مرد بن جاتا ہے۔ اب اس المیے کو محسوس کرنے سے ہی رونگٹے کھڑے ہوجاتے ہیں۔
مصنف نے دھیمے لہجے میں انقلاب اور اسکے نتیجے میں جنم لینے والے المیوں کو بیان کیا ہے۔ لوگ جس تبدیلی کے انتظار میں تھے وہ منزل ابھی بہت دور تھی۔
کردار محدود لیکن گہرائی سے محروم ہیں۔ زبان ادبی ہے۔ سماجی تنقید اور طنز گہرا ہے۔
ساڑھے تین سو صفحات سے کم اس ناول کو مشعل فاونڈیشن نے شائع کیا ہے اور مسز انور غالب نے اسکا ترجمہ کیا ہے۔
از Faisal Majeed
مصنف نے دھیمے لہجے میں انقلاب اور اسکے نتیجے میں جنم لینے والے المیوں کو بیان کیا ہے۔ لوگ جس تبدیلی کے انتظار میں تھے وہ منزل ابھی بہت دور تھی۔
کردار محدود لیکن گہرائی سے محروم ہیں۔ زبان ادبی ہے۔ سماجی تنقید اور طنز گہرا ہے۔
ساڑھے تین سو صفحات سے کم اس ناول کو مشعل فاونڈیشن نے شائع کیا ہے اور مسز انور غالب نے اسکا ترجمہ کیا ہے۔
از Faisal Majeed
November 17, 2024
The Cultural Revolution in China psychologically warped many lives. This semi-autobiographical novel by Xianliang shows just how strange everyday life was like for those sentenced to jail or hard labour in the state farms. Never knowing when you'd be sent off to jail again for writing, saying, doing or listening to something, life was insecure and sometimes precarious. There are some lovely observations of the natural world in this novel, which must have provided comfort to the observers.. There are some surreal moments as well, such as when Xianliang gets counselling from his old piebald horse. The Cultural Revolution is still reverberating through the lives of many Chinese and it will be a long time until the echos fade. I'm glad I read this novel.
April 6, 2023
This was quite interesting. Getting a glimpse into the attitude and thinking of a man who was run-through by the revolutions of China, this book shows you a different way of looking at the purpose and flow of life. Zhang Xianling's coming to terms with this period of his life, and his perception of marriage and divorce in a time of political uncertainty, is written in a thoughtful way connecting his circumstances to the nature around him. Not too long of a read and was good for lazy, sunny days outside.
June 14, 2023
هذه الرواية تكشف عالم الصين الخفي وناسه المقموعين في معسكرات العمل ومزارعه النائية حيث يتحول الانسان إلى مخلوق مجرد من كل أحاسيسه ورغباته ومنفذ فقط لاوامر المكبرات الصوتية.
مأساة الصين تحت وطأة الشيوعية يرويها المثقف الصيني المنفي داخل غياهب بلاده وداخل ذاته وتساؤلاته وعجزه المريع.
انها رواية غريبة وآسرة لعالم نكتشفه مجددا لقارة انطوت وناسها على نفسها وراء سورها العظيم.
مأساة الصين تحت وطأة الشيوعية يرويها المثقف الصيني المنفي داخل غياهب بلاده وداخل ذاته وتساؤلاته وعجزه المريع.
انها رواية غريبة وآسرة لعالم نكتشفه مجددا لقارة انطوت وناسها على نفسها وراء سورها العظيم.
January 14, 2025
Story of love in Chinese re-education labour farms. Beautiful pastoral scenes early with measured gentle writing style. Gets clunkier and jumbled but nonetheless works small domestic into big political to make a good meaningful story. The little songs and pieces of poetry expand the book.
June 21, 2025
Çin'deki komünizm hakkında okuma yapmak istiyorsanız şahane bir seçim. Ama hikaye sadece bunla sınırlı değil çalışma kamplarındaki yaşam koşulları, komünist yönetimin halka, çiftçiye, mahkuma yaklaşımı ayrıca kadın erkek ilişkilerine dair bir hikaye.
Keyifle okudum.
Keyifle okudum.
January 27, 2020
Tough! This one made me grateful for what I have.
July 8, 2024
Realistic portrait of the dehumanization caused by Communism.
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