You are in the western suburbs of the plateau.

Author: Zhang Wei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: This is Zhang Wei's soulful work! To ensure this weighty long novel left no room for regrets, Zhang Wei revised it eight times over a decade. It seems he truly considered this long novel his soulful masterpiece. There are two Zhang Weis— one is the Shandong man who wrote a series of works like The Ancient Ship, Letters from a Distant Province, Can't Forget the Sunflowers, and Fading Scenery, and his works have always been a focal point in literary circles for decades. The other Zhang Wei is one we are unfamiliar with— in the "clang of sizzling dishes" over the phone, he discussed his newly completed work You Are on the Plateau·West Suburbs with an interviewer, his language detached from life, just like his novels. This is a spiritual history of Chinese intellectuals in the second half of the 20th century. The novel follows three threads: one thread tells the spiritual journey and winding experiences of Lao Ning, a geologist, as he returns to the city from his beloved grape garden, grows tired of the city's clamor and the boredom of his work, and leaves the city to seek out his family's; another thread depicts the story of Zhuang Zhou, who was mistakenly accused of murder and fled to escape; and the third thread is about the unique and beautiful love story of Professor Qu, an elderly intellectual. In that special era, he and his lover and student endured hardships, and the process of human nature's alienation, distortion, and transformation of other intellectuals like Lan Yu and Hong Ziwu, who were also from intellectual backgrounds, is vividly portrayed. The novel profoundly depicts the kindness and tolerance of Chinese intellectuals, their unwavering pursuit of life's value despite enduring hardships and suffering, imbuing the reader with immense motivation. Represented by Professor Qu, the older generation of intellectuals, and embodied by Lao Ning and Zhuang Zhou, the younger generation, pass down this excellent character of Chinese intellectuals through generations.