Book description
The classic bestselling Chinese novel spanning four decades following
the creation of the People's Republic in 1949, translated into English
for the first time.
Originally published in 1987, two years before the Tiananmen Square
protests, The Ancient Ship immediately caused a sensation in China.
Wei's award-winning first novel is the story of three generations of the
Sui, Zhao, and Li families living in the fictional northern town of Wali
during the troubled years of China's post-liberation.
Wei vividly depicts the changes in Wali, where most people have made
their livelihood by simply cooking and selling noodles. Once the home to
large sailing ships that travelled along the Luqing River, Wali is now
left with an unearthed hull of an ancient wooden ship. The ship stands
as a metaphor for China, mirrored in the lives of the townspeople, who
in the course of the narrative face such defining moments in history as
the Land Reform Movement, the famine of 1959-1961, the Great Leap
Forward, the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and the Cultural Revolution. A bold
examination of a society in turmoil, a study in human nature, the
struggle of oppressed people to control their own fate, and the clash
between tradition and modernization, The Ancient Ship is a revolutionary
work of Chinese fiction that speaks to people across the globe. Zhang
Wei was born in 1956 in China's northern province of Shandong. He
graduated from the Chinese Department at Yantai Normal College in 1980.
Three years later, he became a member of the Chinese Writers
Association, an organization for which he has served as the
Vice-Chairman of the Shandong branch. His first novel, The Ancient Ship,
was a bestseller and award-winner in China. One of the most widely
respected fiction writers of the post-Mao era, Zhang Wei lives in
Beijing.
