Sweet Li Jie (Paperback)

David Dabydeen

ISBN 10: 1845235916 / ISBN 13: 9781845235918

Published by Peepal Tree Press Ltd, Yorkshire, 2024

About this Item

Paperback. In Sweet Li Jie, two distant worlds converge: Wuhan Province in China and British Guiana.Jia Yun, a traveling textile merchant, leaves Wuhan to join the exodus of migrants escaping poverty. Most of them to become indentured labourers in the canefields of Demerara.Through heartfelt letters intended for his sweetheart, Li Jie, Jia Yun paints a vivid picture of life for Indians, Africans, and other ethnic groups under British rule during the twilight years of indentureship. Meanwhile, the novels sections set in China reveal the struggles of rural Wuhan under a crumbling feudal regime.Sweet Li Jie delves into complex interpersonal relations, from the landlord-servant dynamics in Wuhan to the bond between Jia Yun and his Afro-Guyanese guide, Harris. Amid vulnerability and uncertainty, and the complexities of living in servitude, these characters grapple for personhood and interdependence. Life in Wuhan and British Guiana is vividly evoked in this novel, told mainly through letters. Amidst the crumbling Chinese feudal system, and life under British colonial rule, the novel's characters seek personhood and interdependence. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781845235918

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Sweet Li Jie (Paperback)
• Publisher: Peepal Tree Press Ltd, Yorkshire
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1845235916
• ISBN 13: 9781845235918
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

When the textile merchant Jia Yun leaves Wuhan Province in China for British Guiana in around 1876, his letters to his sweetheart Li Jie, owner of the only bicycle in the province, are full of the vivid characters he meets, like his Afro-Guyanese guide, Harris (with his esoteric theories), and Indian Coolie Gurr (with his instinctive feeling for what a humane society should be like). They, like Jia Yun, are busy remaking themselves in the post slavery world of Demerara as it is changed by Indian, Chinese and Portuguese indentured immigration. But is Sweet Li Jie the person Jia Yun imagines her to be? She is the receiver of other kinds of stories in her Wuhan village. It is about to be engulfed by armed chaos, provoked not least by the second British opium war on China, bringing feudal society to its end. There is landlord Wang Changling, still writing epic narratives that hide from him his true nature and the reality he now inhabits. And there is his loyal/disloyal servant Baoyu with his shattered body and endlessly inventive stories of love, circus life, cruelty, dreaming and memory, wondering how he might best serve those even worse off than him.

About the Author

David Dabydeen was born in Guyana. He was sent to England aged thirteen, and was in care until he was eighteen. He read English at Cambridge, and has published seven earlier novels and three collections of poetry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Emeritus Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. In 2008 he was awarded the prestigious Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Award.