Diary of Ma Yan

Author: Han Shi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
Features: A bestseller on the French bestseller list, this is a moving modern fairy tale that takes place in one of the poorest places in China—Xinhai Gushi in Ningxia. In 1972, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared it an area unsuitable for human habitation. Yet here lived a 15-year-old girl who, with her tender shoulders, bore the weight of poverty and, facing the constant threat of dropping out of school, began writing four diaries starting from the fourth grade of elementary school. Thus, a daughter and a mother together created an incredible story—one that not only saved themselves but also saved other children. A private diary of a rural Chinese girl came into the hands of a French reporter from Paris, like a message in a bottle with a distress call that finally reached its destination. However, behind so many coincidences must lie an irresistible inevitability. This book is the diary of a girl who was about to drop out of school, discovered by Pierre Askhi, the Paris-based reporter for the French newspaper Libération during his time in Xinhai Gushi, Ningxia. In 2002, he compiled and published it in Paris, which quickly climbed the French annual bestseller list. Its rights were sold to multiple countries, including German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and English, becoming a bestseller in many nations. The diary tells of the daily life of a female student in a western rural village, her longing for education, her fears of dropping out, her mother’s pain in preventing her from going to school, and her determination to change her fate through learning. Diary Excerpt: July 13, 2001, Friday (Sunny)
Mother steamed some steamed buns, and she called Father inside to eat them. I followed her in, and then I ate a small bowl of the leftover black rice from the afternoon. After finishing, I wanted to get another bowl, but my little brother had already eaten it all. I asked Mother if I could have one bun. Mother said, “Eat it tomorrow, you can’t have it today.” I said, “I’ll just have a small one,” but Mother still refused. So I went outside to sleep, looking at the stars in the sky and wondering if Mother was still angry because I didn’t get into the girls’ middle school. I started blaming Mother, and she didn’t even give me dinner that night. I secretly cried. July 30, 2001, Monday (Sunny)
This afternoon, while I was writing my diary, I looked for my pen, but it was gone. I asked my two younger brothers if they had seen it, but they said no. I looked for it where I had written my diary yesterday, but it wasn’t there either. I asked Mother if she had seen it, and she said, “I saw you put your pen and notebook on the kang [traditional bed], so I put them in the drawer for fear you’d lose them.” But I didn’t find it in the drawer either. My heart broke. You might laugh, but is a pen really worth being sad over? You don’t know the story of this pen—it was bought with the savings I had accumulated over two semesters. I didn’t spend it on anything else, just this pen. I saw that other classmates each had two or three pens, but I didn’t even have one, so I couldn’t help but buy one. The pain of this pen is really my pain. The reason Mother gave me pocket money was…