Is there a heaven that knows when people are sick? — A Record of China's Literary Scene After 1949

Author: Chen Tushou
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-10-01
Features: The articles collected in this book were originally published in periodicals such as Dushu and received strong social response. The book was published with prefaces written by renowned writers Wang Meng and Lin Jinlan. It is a record of the Chinese literary scene after 1949, recreating the experiences and inner journeys of famous writers like Shen Congwen and Lao She through detailed materials, allowing readers to uncover long-forgotten stories. The book depicts the life in a impoverished neighborhood in Chongqing during the 1960s and the subsequent half-century, telling the touching story of a young girl's search for self. The protagonist, "Liu Liu" ("I"), was born in 1962 in Chongqing, an era of great famine. She is a product of double hunger ("food hunger" and "sexual hunger"), the illegitimate daughter of a mother who carried the family's burdens on a pair of bamboo poles and ropes, exhausted and hungry, and a young man with only a poor set of shoulders. Due to her special background, she lost her father. In a hunger for both food and love, the girl allows the "history teacher" to fill her body, attempting to fill the terrifying, void-filled, and desperate abyss of hunger.