A real Sanmao

Author: Liu Lanfang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: Sanmao is seen as a "strange person" in the eyes of ordinary people, but she is a "prized one" in the hands of fate. "The small man of heaven is the nobleman of the world; the nobleman of heaven is the small man of the world." This passage from the Zhuangzi might have been written specifically for Sanmao. Sanmao's understanding of life is simply the word "play," "I want to play this life out to the fullest." She showed urban women who had read a little, lived in concrete jungles, and traveled from morning to evening the other possibility of "women's lives": truancy in youth, during adolescence, romantic love with a foreign accent, a handsome, loyal, and bearded husband, starting from scratch in the desert, free and unrestrained. In short, the word is "play." She demonstrated the life that shy, depressed urban women longed for but could never experience, showing a "pure land" deep within a woman's heart. Therefore, Sanmao always occupies a corner in their memories. This book records Sanmao's childhood, youth, and love life. It includes chapters such as "A Daughter in the Chen Family," "The Rainy Season Will Not Return," "My Heart for the Sahara," "A Woman's Way of Life," "The Mystery of Suicide," and "Sanmao's Literary World."