Young Babylon

Knowing nothing more than the working-class life he is born into, headstrong Lu Xiaolu reluctantly starts down the path he is expected to follow. At age nineteen in 1990s China, he feels pressure to follow suit with those around him and takes a job at the town’s saccharin factory. Slowly, he adjusts to the bureaucratic factory routine, making the best of the situation by bonding with coworkers, flirting with girls, and refusing to give in completely to the expectations of those around him.

As Lu Xiaolu finds his way, a startling portrait of an economically expanding China comes into view; the propaganda of a common goal gives way to a bottom-line system that he sees as indifferent to individual happiness. But thanks to the relationships he develops, Lu Xiaolu decides to fight for the life he wants.

Lu Nei, formerly Shang Junwei, was born in 1973 in Suzhou, east China. He is the fiction moderator for the “underliterature” section of the website sickbaby.org. He has had a wide range of jobs, including factory worker, shop assistant, salesperson, warehouse manager, radio announcer, and creative director for an advertising agency. He lives in Shanghai.