Book description
It's been a pilgrimage for Annie Dillard: from Tinker Creek to the
Galapagos Islands, the high Arctic, the Pacific Northwest, the Amazon
Jungle--and now, China. This informative narrative is full of
fascinating people: Chinese people, mostly writers, who encounter
American writers in various bizarre circumstances in both China and the
U. S. There is a toasting scene at a Chinese banquet; a portrait of a
bitter, flirtatious diplomat at a dance hall; a formal meeting with
Chinese writers; a conversation with an American businessman in a hotel
lobby; an evening with long-suffering Chinese intellectuals in their
house; a scene in the Beijing foreigners' compound with an excited
European journalist; and a scene of unwarranted hilarity at the Beijing
Library. In the U. S., there is Allen Ginsberg having a bewildering
conversation in Disneyland with a Chinese journalist; there is the
lovely and controversial writer Zhang Jie suiting abrupt mood changes to
a variety of actions; and there is the fiercely spirited Jiange Zilong
singing in a Connecticut dining room, eyes closed. These are real
stories told with a warm and lively humor, with a keen eye for paradox,
and with fresh insight into the human drama. "A splendid little
book."--Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World ANNIE
DILLARD's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974. Her
other books are Tickets for a Prayer Wheel, Holy the Firm, Living by
Fiction, and Teaching a Stone to Talk. She was born in Pittsburgh and
received a B. A. (1967) and an M. A. (1968) from Hollins College. She is
now adjunct professor of English at Wesleyan University. A chapter of
this book was the Phi Beta Kappa lecture at Harvard/Radcliffe n 1983.
She lives in Middletown, Connecticut with her husband, Gary Clevidence,
and their daughter, Rosie.
