The Noodle Maker: A Novel - Softcover

Jian, Ma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312424795 ISBN 13: 9780312424794

Publisher: Picador, 2006

Synopsis

From Mi Jian, the highly acclaimed Chinese dissident, comes a satirical novel about the absurdities of life in a post-Tiananmen China.

Two men meet for dinner each week. Over the course of one of these drunken evenings, the writer recounts the stories he would write, had he the courage: a young man buys an old kiln and opens a private crematorium, delighting in his ability to harass the corpses of police officers and Party secretaries, while swooning to banned Western music; a heartbroken actress performs a public suicide by stepping into the jaws of a wild tiger, watched nonchalantly by her ex-lover. Extraordinary characters inspire him, their lives pulled and pummeled by fate and politics, as if they are balls of dough in the hands of an all-powerful noodle maker.

Ma Jian's satirical masterpiece allows us a humorous, yet profound, glimpse of those struggling to survive under a system that dictates their every move.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

From the award-winning author of Red Dust comes a virtuoso piece of "red humour" -- a darkly funny novel about the absurdities and cruelties of life in modern China.
Every week, a writer of political propaganda and a professional blood donor meet for dinner. They are unlikely friends -- one of them tortured by his "art," the other fat and wealthy from the earthy business of providing spare blood for the citizens of China. Over the course of one especially gastronomic evening, the writer starts to complain about his latest Party commission: the story of an ordinary soldier who sacrifices his life to the revolutionary cause. This is not the novel he wants to write, he tells his friend. Inside his head lives an unwritten book about the people he knows or sees everyday on the streets -- people whose lives are far more representative of the world in which he lives.

About the Author:

Ma Jian is the author of Red Dust, which won the Thomas Cook Prize in the UK. His most recent novel is Stick Out Your Tongue (FSG). He now lives in England.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0312424795
• ISBN 13: 9780312424794
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192