Ninth Building
By (Author) Zou Jingzhi
Translated by Jeremy Tiang
Open Letter
Open Letter
1st August 2023
United States
General
Fiction
895.1352
Paperback
272
Width 140mm, Height 216mm
Ninth Building is a fascinating collection of vignettes drawn from Zou Jingzhis experience growing up during the Cultural Revolution, first as a boy in Beijing and then as a teenager exiled to the countryside. Zou poetically captures a side of the Cultural Revolution that is less talked aboutthe sheer tedium and waste of young life, as well as the gallows humor that accompanies such desperate situations. Jeremy Tiangs enthralling translation of this important work of fiction was awarded a PEN/Heim Grant.
"These blunt, tamped-down translations of tales of youth during cultural revolution in Beijing address the grim cruelty of that time"--PEN America
Zou Jingzhi is highly regarded in China as a fiction writer, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and
playwright. He is a founding member of the Chinese theatre collective Longmashe. As a
screenwriter, the films he wrote for Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar Wai have been well received at
film festivals across the world. His plays and operas have been performed in China as well as
internationally, and his poems and essays have been very influential, going into multiple reprints.
Jeremy Tiang has translated over twenty books from Chinese, including novels by Yan Ge, Yeng Pway Ngon, Zhang Yueran, Shuang Xuetao, Lo Yi-Chin, Chan Ho-Kei, and Geling Yan. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. He also writes and translates plays. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in New York City.