Will the Boat Sink the Water?Will the Boat Sink the Water?
the Life of China's Peasants
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Book, 2006
Current format, Book, 2006, 1st ed, Available .Book, 2006
Current format, Book, 2006, 1st ed, Available . Offered in 0 more formatsDepicts life among the nine hundred million peasants who inhabit the rural areas of China, revealing the destitute conditions under which they live and the reasons why they have been excluded from China's economic revolution.
This unique work of investigative literary journalism is translated into English for the first time. The Chinese prize-winning original sold more than 250,000 copies before it was banned and went on to sell close to ten million copies illegally in China. Subsequently, the authors have been harassed in the courts, forced to terminate their employment, and have had their home stoned by a mob - all because they dared to paint a true portrait of the life of China's peasants.
Chinese journalists Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao returned to Chen's home province of Anhui, one of China's poorest, to undertake a three-year study of how the peasants fared there, asking the question: Have the peasants, in whose name the revolution in China was undertaken, been betrayed by Mao and his successors? The result is a narrative of life among the 900 million, and a portrait of the petty dictators who dominate China's villages and counties.
Told through a series of individual dramatic narratives, Will the Boat Sink the Water? gives voice to the unheard masses and looks beneath the glossy surface of the new China to show what daily life is like for its millions of rural poor.
A prize-winning investigative exposé of the poverty and injustice experienced by China's 900 million peasants, told through a series of dramatic personal narratives.
The Chinese economic miracle is happening despite, not because of, China's 900 million peasants. They are missing from the portraits of booming Shanghai, or Beijing. Many of China's underclass live under a feudalistic system unchanged since the fifteenth century. They are truly the voiceless in modern China. They are also, perhaps, the reason that China will not be able to make the great social and economic leap forward, because if it is to leap it must carry the 900 million with it. Chinese journalists Wu Chuntao and Chen Guidi returned to Wu's home province of Anhui, one of China's poorest, to undertake a three-year survey of what had happened to the peasants there, asking the question: Have the peasants been betrayed by the revolution undertaken in their name by Mao and his successors? The result is a brilliant narrative of life among the 900 million, and a vivid portrait of the petty dictators that run China's villages and counties and the consequences of their bullying despotism on the people they administer. Told principally through four dramatic narratives of paricular Anhui people, Will the Boat Sink the Water? gives voice to the unheard masses and looks beneath the gloss of the new China to find the truth of daily life for its vast population of rural poor.
This unique work of investigative literary journalism is translated into English for the first time. The Chinese prize-winning original sold more than 250,000 copies before it was banned and went on to sell close to ten million copies illegally in China. Subsequently, the authors have been harassed in the courts, forced to terminate their employment, and have had their home stoned by a mob - all because they dared to paint a true portrait of the life of China's peasants.
Chinese journalists Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao returned to Chen's home province of Anhui, one of China's poorest, to undertake a three-year study of how the peasants fared there, asking the question: Have the peasants, in whose name the revolution in China was undertaken, been betrayed by Mao and his successors? The result is a narrative of life among the 900 million, and a portrait of the petty dictators who dominate China's villages and counties.
Told through a series of individual dramatic narratives, Will the Boat Sink the Water? gives voice to the unheard masses and looks beneath the glossy surface of the new China to show what daily life is like for its millions of rural poor.
A prize-winning investigative exposé of the poverty and injustice experienced by China's 900 million peasants, told through a series of dramatic personal narratives.
The Chinese economic miracle is happening despite, not because of, China's 900 million peasants. They are missing from the portraits of booming Shanghai, or Beijing. Many of China's underclass live under a feudalistic system unchanged since the fifteenth century. They are truly the voiceless in modern China. They are also, perhaps, the reason that China will not be able to make the great social and economic leap forward, because if it is to leap it must carry the 900 million with it. Chinese journalists Wu Chuntao and Chen Guidi returned to Wu's home province of Anhui, one of China's poorest, to undertake a three-year survey of what had happened to the peasants there, asking the question: Have the peasants been betrayed by the revolution undertaken in their name by Mao and his successors? The result is a brilliant narrative of life among the 900 million, and a vivid portrait of the petty dictators that run China's villages and counties and the consequences of their bullying despotism on the people they administer. Told principally through four dramatic narratives of paricular Anhui people, Will the Boat Sink the Water? gives voice to the unheard masses and looks beneath the gloss of the new China to find the truth of daily life for its vast population of rural poor.
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- New York : Public Affairs, c2006.
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