Gao Laozhuang

Author: Jia Pingwa
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-11-01
Features: High Old Village had a good start, but after its first publication by Taibai Literature and Art Press, it was quite solitary in China, with only Yangtze Literature and Art Press producing a commented edition once. I don’t understand why some publishers, when they promise so earnestly during manuscript submissions, abandon books after printing large quantities at once. They are impatient for quick profits and don’t make efforts to promote long-selling books, harming the interests of both authors and readers, and even their own. This creates an opportunity for counterfeit books to sneak in. The High Old Village edition is so terrible that it’s unbearable—the paper is rough, the binding is messy, and the text is so small that you need a magnifying glass to read it. The proposal to rerelease High Old Village under the Golden Harvest Series delights me, bringing a sense of rescuing a good woman from a brothel.