Friday, July 25, 2008

In anticipation of the Olympic Games, The Guardian's book blog showcased "Catherine Sampson's top 10 books on Beijing":
  • Beijing Coma by Ma Jian
  • Please Don't Call Me Human by Wang Shuo
  • A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li
  • The Uninvited by Yan Geling
  • The Crazed by Ha Jin
  • The Last Empress by Anchee Min
  • Serve the People by Yan Lianke
  • I Love Dollars by Zhu Wen
  • The Dragon's Tail by Adam Williams
  • Beijing Doll by Chun Sue
I can vouch for The Crazed, but I haven't yet read any of the others unfortunately.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Last Empress was great!

Anonymous said...

I recommend Geling Yan's work and encourage anyone interested in finding out more about it to go to her website, www.redroom.com/author/geling-yan

Anonymous said...

Not fiction, but a fascinating and hilarious memoir I recommend: Red China Blues, by Jan Wong. Amazing 1st person account of a Canadian-Chinese who studied in China during the Cultural Revolution and who revisited China over the decades. Wong is a great writer and dramatically shows how living in China both brainwashed her and made her skeptical about politics. Here's an interview she did with Frontline PBS . Of course, this is nonfiction, but her story is still a lot of fun. (She studied in Beijing as a student in the 1970s and visited there several times).

Gwen Dawson said...

Thanks for the great recommendations!