N/A’s Reviews > Stories of the Sahara > Status Update

On an old road, in the autumn wind, a scrawny horse keeps trudging
The sun, slanting, to the west, setting –
Heart-torn, lovelorn, the wanderer, to the verge of the sky a-roaming.

Deep down inside, the Sahara Desert had been my dream lover for so
long. I looked around at the boundless sand across which the wind wailed,
the sky high above, the landscape majestic and calm. It was dusk. The
setting sun stained the desert the red of fresh blood, a sorrowful beauty. The
temperature felt like early winter. I’d expected a scorching sun, but instead
found a swathe of poetic desolation

For the past few days, I’ve had one thought in my mind that I can’t drive
away, something that I’ve been pondering and pondering and pondering.
‘I’ve been thinking that maybe, just maybe, I have a subconscious
impulse to end my own life. So that’s why I became so ill,’ I say softly.

FOREWORD
Across the collection, Sanmao the chimerical protagonist-narrator
presents herself as trendsetter and rule-breaker, cool girl and mystic,
pensive romantic and comic heroine, globetrotter and housewife. She’s a
singular polyglot who refuses to be confined to the limitations of a single
category.