The Remote Country of Women: A Novel (Fiction from Modern China, 11)

In China During The Cultural Revolution, A Romance Between Liang Rui, A Chauvinist Student Activist, And Sunamei, A Liberated Girl From The Sleepy Countryside--leaving The Reader Wondering Who Is Backward And Who Is Modern. A Study Of Two Worlds, To Which Each Eventually Returns. The Author Lives In Shanghai. Bai Hua ; Translated From The Chinese By Qingyun Wu And Thomas O. Beebee. Bai Hua shifts from tragicomic farce to earthy eroticism to modernist playwriting in this carefully wrought exploration of the clash between two ways of life. In alternating chapters, the novel tells the stories of Sunamei, a winsome young woman from an idyllic matriarchal community, and Liang Rui, a self-absorbed man who is also weary witness to the Cultural Revolution. Through his two protagonists, Bai Hua addresses themes of the repression and freedom of sexuality, the brutality of modernity, and the fluidity of gender roles as the novel moves hypnotically and inevitably toward a collision between two worlds. First published in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in 1988, The Remote Country of Women has since been translated into French, German, and Russian. It appears now in English for the first time. In altering chapers, the novel tells the stories of Sunamei, a young woman from a rural matriarchal community, and Lian Rui, a self-absorbed man who is also weary witness to the Cultural Revolution. Through his two protagonists, the author addresses themes of the repression and freedon of sexuality, the brutality of modernity, and the fluidity of gender roles as the novel moves hypnotically and inevitably toward a collision between two worlds.