Richard - thank you so much for this review. That people - like yourself - who know/knew China, have enjoyed this book is the best complement.
When I wrote it there were so few novels being published about China - and the books that were being published by Chinese authors were the 'misery memoirs' of the Cultural Revolution, which was as out of date, at the time, as the Beetles and the Swinging Sixties were to contemporary Britain. The Western novels all used a western character 'to hold the hand' of the reader, as if China was too opaque or inscrutable to understand otherwise. Something I did not believe, and wanted to disprove with this novel.
Since DDTH there have been so many Chinese novelists, its been a pleasure to read their many voices.
DDTH somehow said everything I felt and loved about the 1990s China I knew. It was definitely a love letter to Shaoyang.
When I wrote it there were so few novels being published about China - and the books that were being published by Chinese authors were the 'misery memoirs' of the Cultural Revolution, which was as out of date, at the time, as the Beetles and the Swinging Sixties were to contemporary Britain. The Western novels all used a western character 'to hold the hand' of the reader, as if China was too opaque or inscrutable to understand otherwise. Something I did not believe, and wanted to disprove with this novel.
Since DDTH there have been so many Chinese novelists, its been a pleasure to read their many voices.
DDTH somehow said everything I felt and loved about the 1990s China I knew. It was definitely a love letter to Shaoyang.