In this dazzling, earthy novel -- winner of the prestigious Pegasus Prize for Literature -- Jia Pingwa presents an unforgettable chronicle of rural China, a world at once utterly alien and uncannily familiar. Called "impressive and revealing" (Kirkus Reviews), Turbulence follows the lives of two peasants, Golden Dog and Water Girl, through the post-Mao years and sets their star-crossed love for each other against the political upheavals of China itself. Pitted against the bureaucracy that hamstrings modern China, Golden Dog is an idealistic reporter not afraid to lash out at the abuses and corruption of the rival Tian and Gong clans. As he winds through a fascinating cast of revolutionary cadres, bureaucrats, fortune-tellers, blacksmiths, farmers, and artisans, Golden Dog, however, suffers a series of setbacks. Despite his love for the saintly Water Girl, the two seem destined to be kept apart by the vicissitudes of politics and culture -- she twice widowed and he pressured into an engagement with the seductive Yingying and, racked by guilt, turning at times to the lovely Shi Hua for solace. Part epic story, part love story, part political parable, Turbulence places the reader in a world where the I Ching exists alongside The Thoughts of Chairman Mao. Yet the sheer humanity of the novel transcends both cultural and political differences and makes it stunningly resonant to our own culture. "A rare, richly detailed, and insightful account of life in a Chinese village ... With earthy language and bawdy humor." -- Ann Scott Tyson, The Christian Science Monitor

Turbulence: A Novel (Pegasus Prize for Literature)

Literature & Fiction

Pingwa, Jia

Literary

GROVE PRESS

Follows the lives of two peasants, Golden Dog and Water Girl, through the post-Mao years and sets their star-crossed love for each other against the political upheavals of China itself

Turbulence: A Novel

Louisiana State Univ Pr

In this captivating collection from the Shaanxi region, considered the cradle of Chinese civilization, twenty disparate and unique voices come together to show a China caught between new-world advancements and old-world traditions. From the homeland of China’s first dynasty and the world-famous terra-cotta warriors, these tales show rugged rural life colliding with fast-paced city life; hollow arranged marriages juxtaposed with torrid forbidden love affairs; and the vanity of newly minted millionaires clashing with the desperation of the poor. Through the eyes of award-winning authors, we see a changing China—from the Cultural Revolution to the country’s infamous one-child policy—giving us a profound look at the evolution of a land that is at once ancient and modern.

Old Land, New Tales: Twenty Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China

Zhongshi, Chen

Contemporary

Amazon Crossing

Winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize. From one of China's most celebrated authors comes a masterful novel about modernity and tradition, love and obsession, and economic change and quixotic dreams--all set against the backdrop of a rapidly urbanizing China. In post-Cultural Revolution China, in the fading village of Freshwind, the fates of two households are shifting. The Bais, once the most powerful family in the region, have fallen from status. Their beautiful daughter, Snow Bai, an embodiment of tradition, pursues a career in a vanishing art form. The Xias, enthusiastic members of the Party, are on the rise. Their favorite son, Wind Xia, is a citified politician whose marriage to Snow Bai could unite the two families. But in a village casting about for a new road to prosperity, fortunes can change. Watching it all unfold is a local outcast named Spark. The inveterate busybody is given to strange visions and flights of fancy, and is motivated by the only constant in Freshwind: his mad love for Snow Bai. Expansive, funny, monumental, and deeply poignant, Jia Pingwa's The Shaanxi Opera is a keenly observant portrait of China in an era of globalization, societal upheaval, and the growing influence of popular culture.

The Shaanxi Opera: A Novel

From one of China’s foremost authors, Jia Pingwa’s Happy Dreams is a powerful depiction of life in industrializing contemporary China, in all its humor and pathos, as seen through the eyes of Happy Liu, a charming and clever rural laborer who leaves his home for the gritty, harsh streets of Xi’an in search of better life.
After a disastrous end to a relationship, Hawa “Happy” Liu embarks on a quest to find the recipient of his donated kidney and a life that lives up to his self-given moniker. Traveling from his rural home in Freshwind to the city of Xi’an, Happy brings only an eternally positive attitude, his devoted best friend Wufu, and a pair of high-heeled women’s shoes he hopes to fill with the love of his life.
In Xi’an, Happy and Wufu find jobs as trash pickers sorting through the city’s filth, but Happy refuses to be deterred by inauspicious beginnings. In his eyes, dusty birds become phoenixes, the streets become rivers, and life is what you make of it. When he meets the beautiful Yichun, he imagines she is the one to fill the shoes and his Cinderella-esque dream. But when the harsh city conditions and the crush of societal inequalities take the life of his friend and shake Happy to his soul, he’ll need more than just his unrelenting optimism to hold on to the belief that something better is possible.

Happy Dreams

Cherry Town is a remote community located deep in the Qinling Mountains in the southern Shanxi province. There, a beautiful, college-educated woman is appointed to serve as director of the new office of social management. Daideng, whose adopted name literally means"the lantern bearer" as a poetic reference to the firefly, works closely with one of her young officers, an unmarried woman named Zhuzi. Together, they must address a myriad of grievances brought by the townspeople-ranging from the pervasive lice infestation to the building of a new factory, which will provide the impoverished town with a significant economic stimulus at the risk of polluting the region's delicate ecosystem and damaging the town's scenery. Often distracted by her empathy for the villagers, Daideng's soft heart often proves to be her downfall.

The Lantern Bearer

CN Times Books Inc.

 Evening, I made my one hundred and seventy-eighth scratch on the cave wall.Despite her humble rural beginnings, Butterfly regards herself as a sophisticated young woman. So, when offered a lucrative job in the city, she jumps at the chance.But instead of being given work, she is trafficked and sold to Bright Black, a desperate man from a poor mountain village.Trapped in Bright’s cave home, Butterfly struggles to repel his lustful advances, and she plans her escape… not so easily done in this isolated and remote village where she is watched day and night.Will her tenacity and free spirit survive, or will she be broken?

Broken Wings

ACA Publishing Ltd

Constantly bickering with her shallow friend Brow, beginning correspondence courses she will never finish, helping sage-like Grandpa Cloud Forest with his mystical healing and stealthily avoiding matrimony with her less-than-impressive fiancé Old Ran, Plum's life appears to be puttering along what seems like a tediously predictable path. But when the village home she cherishes comes under threat from big city capitalists, she finds herself thrust into a series of adventures with a mercurial rogue called Chivalry.\nJia Pingwa's The Earthen Gate was an instant bestseller in his native China and now looks set to make waves in its first-ever English translation, two decades later. This raucous, and at times achingly poignant tale combines earthy humour, ancient wisdom and thrilling action to highlight the impact of creeping urbanisation on traditional country folk.

The Earthen Gate

Valley Press

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