Cherries on a Pomegranate Tree

by Li Er, Dave Haysom (Translator)

Americans, Babies and... Camels?

In one-child China, when a mother runs from home because of her illegal pregnancy, it’s Kong Fanhua’s problem.

She’s the only female village chief in Xiushui County, and her day-to-day tasks range from the mundane to the tracking down this runaway who left her twins behind, keeping rumours of a vengeful ghost at bay while trying to convince some rich American to invest in the local paper plant. Not to mention looking after her own farm and family. After all, the crops aren’t going to plant themselves.

While the incompetent men in local government fail to get much done, Fanhua picks up the slack. But when higher-ups start investigating her hometown’s birth quotas, just as she’s up for re-election, the squeeze is on. Can she keep all the plates spinning? Or will she resort to villainous tactics to preserve the peace? And why won’t her lazy husband shut up about camels?

Genres: Fiction, China

374 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobody had any faith in the people directly above them. The villagers mistrusted the township officials, but they had confidence in the county leaders; the township officials mistrusted the county leaders, but they had confidence in the municipal leaders; and the county officials, well, naturally they had no faith in the municipal leaders, but they did believe in the provincial leaders. There are no errors in the scriptures of the Buddha, only misreadings by neglectful abbots.

The January Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month.

Cherries on a Pomegranate Tree is Dave Haysom's translation of the novel 石榴树上结樱桃 by 李洱 (Li Er).

The German and French translations had rather varying fortunes. Angela Merkel the German Chancellor, liked the book so much she took the translation, Der Granatapfelbaum, der Kirschen trägt, with her on a 2008 trip to China and presented it to the Premier Wen Jiabao. In contrast the French version wasn't actually published as the translator, a Maoist, objected to parts of the book. (source)

This tale of upside down fortunes is rather apposite for the novel whose title draws on chidren's doggerel:

Upside down, inside out
A pomegranate tree where cherries sprout

And image of a pomegranate tree with cherries sprouting is used by several characters to comment on things or people that are out of place or unusual.

The novel is centred on the character of Kong Fanhua, the elected village chief in Guanzhuang, in the jurisdiction of Wangzhai township, under the county town of Xiushui, rare as a woman in such a post. It is set in around 2001 when ex President Jimmy Carter visited the country to observe the elections resulting from the new Organic Law on Villager Committees in operation.
(Carter Center website)

Fanhua is coming up to re-election, and the biggest threat to her reign is avoiding anyone in the village violating the family planning laws - so is horrified when rumours reach her of a woman in the village who has, contract to the official guidance, fallen pregnant for a third time, hoping for a son:

Just like the premier of the State Council, Fanhua had a brain that was forever occupied with a long string of digits, and the most firmly lodged in her memory were those to do with women. Guanzhuang had a population of one thousand, two hundred and forty-five, divided between five village clusters. One hundred and forty-three of those were women of child-bearing age, but seventy-eight of them'd had their tubes tied, and another four were barren. Which left sixty-one bellies that might start bulging at any moment. Thirty-seven of those were legally free to do so, but the remaining twenty-four? They were the time bombs. And if one of those bombs had been detonated, would the other twenty-three remain undisturbed?

This is a novel with a rich and colourful cast of characters. And the reader's grasp on who is who isn't helped by the similar names (both family - a village of Kongs and Mengs - and give names) as well as the translator's understandable decision to use phoenetic renditions of most character's names. From the Translator’s Note:

Translating from Chinese to English, there are three options when it comes to the name of our protagonist, 繁花:

Naturalise: find an English name that has some degree of overlap with the original — “Florence”, for example
Translate: convey the literal meaning of the name — “Blooming Flowers”, let’s say
Transliterate: render the name phonetically in pinyin — “Fanhua”

Choose “Florence”, and the juxtaposition of English names against the Chinese setting soon becomes jarring. Unless, that is, you keep going and naturalise the place names, brand names, cultural references, and very quickly find you have strayed beyond the remit of translation. You also the burden the reader with the task of detaching the character from all the irrelevant associations that the name will evoke for them — the remnants left in their subconscious by every other Florence they have ever encountered. And surely no reader would be able to put up with “Blooming Flowers” — grating, clunky, and shot through with dehumanising Orientalism — for more than a page or two.

“Fanhua” is the least bad option, but transliteration results in a meaningful alteration to the reader’s experience of the book, especially a book with as many characters as Cherries on a Pomegranate Tree: the cognitive burden of keeping track of all the characters is significantly higher when their names are semantically empty shells.

I could have done with a character list - and indeed after around 100 pages stopped reading and made by own - and at one point one of the the narrator/character/author/translation may have benefited from one too, as on p240 Linghui the village barber is described by Fanhua as "the butcher" (who is actually Xiangning, another character on the scene).

Although some characters are given their literal names, a device the translator wisely uses sparingly but for striking effect, such as Pomegranate Zhang, whose sister Quartz Zhang is reputed to be as beautiful as the Korean actress Kim Hee-sun.

But, list in hand, this was a great read. The heroic, and at times politically manipulative, Fanhua has to fend with her rivals for the election, the needs of the villagers, the political demands of the regime, her rival village chiefs from neighbouring villages and the township officials and county leaders (themselves battling for their political positions), while attempting to also take advantage, for herself and the village, of the growing economic opportunities, and dealing with her husband who seems obsessed, for some bizarre reason, with farming camels.

And for the western reader it gives a wonderful insight into the Chinese local government, social and economic system of the time.

The novel is published by the small independent Sinoist Books:

Sinoist Books is a UK-based independent press that publishes only the best in translated Chinese literature and contemporary fiction. Our mission is to act as a bridge between the Chinese and English-speaking worlds, so that the best Sinophone authors and their works can transcend the language barrier. We believe that literature is a summation of the struggles, aspirations and ideals of the authors, and only by appreciating them can we truly achieve a deeper level of understanding.

We partner with award-winning translators and maintain the highest editorial and design standards in order to ensure that these titles are presented in their best possible light. We pair these titles with energetic marketing and events campaigns in order to introduce English readers to these gems of Chinese literature and culture.

Recommended and another book that should have been on the International Booker list vs many of those chosen.

[Dorota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating (and sad) insight into Chinese local politics. The humour adds the charm. However it is exhausting trying to keep track of all the characters. Extra points because the physical book is simply beautiful: a pleasure to hold.

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

One star is for the physical book which is completely gorgeous (under the very ordinary dust jacket). my knowledge of this period comes entirely from Wild Swans (?the Westerner’s primer to China) so I had a vague but limited idea of the context.

I was expecting the story of a woman pregnant again in one-baby China to be more emotional but instead the story was almost completely political and bureaucratic. In fact there was little to no emotion in the book - and when there a rare outburst of emotion from a character, everyone else was always confused and slightly awkward. This is probably the humorous element, which was mostly theoretical to me. I also had no sense of a progression of plot or particular satisfaction when it finished.

Did I say how nice the hardback cover is though?

[Rama jaw98 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it in Arabic,a gift from my niece Ward 💗 , and it was unlike anything I’ve read before.

‏“A pomegranate tree where cherries sprout.”
‏An impossible image, yet that’s the world this novel lives in — where what shouldn’t happen, happens. Where logic quietly unravels.

The story follows Kong Fanhua, a female village chief — a rare figure in her position — navigating power, control, and re-election.
She’s in rural China around 2001, the same time Jimmy Carter visited to observe village elections.
Her main concern? Strict control over population planning. When she hears rumors about a woman getting pregnant for the third time — against the law — her entire sense of authority begins to feel threatened.


‏The novel paints a world governed by power and cold rationality — where even the womb is subject to law. But when something unexpected happens, like a third pregnancy, the entire system begins to crack.
‏It’s a story about a seemingly solid bureaucracy, but one that’s fragile underneath. Rules hold everything together — until one disruption reveals just how unstable it all really is.
‏As if the novel is quietly saying: when we reduce people to numbers or errors to be fixed, we no longer live in a natural world. We live in one where cherries grow on a pomegranate tree.

There’s a part where village women are reduced to numbers — some sterilized, others called “time bombs.” That hit me. The coldness of it. The way power calculates lives.
It’s not a book you fully “get” — and that’s what I loved. It lingers. It challenges. It makes you sit with the unknown.



“Sometimes, the fruit that shouldn’t grow is the one that changes the tree.”