Black Snow

by Liu Heng and David (trans.) Heng, Liu; Kwan

Book Overview

Black Snow is the stunning portrait of a dissatisfied and emotionally illiterate young man's search for meaning and companionship in the gray world of totalitarianism. After serving a three-year sentence in a prison labor camp for his involvement in a juvenile street fight, Li Huiquan returns to Beijing and begins work as a street peddler. At night, he frequents a karaoke bar, where he enters into the shadowy world of the black market and meets a...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802133894
• ISBN13: 9780802133892
• Release Date: April 1994
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Eye opening book!

I wasnt so sure when I got this book whether I would enjoy it or not. I was very pleasantly surprised. It is an eye opening book because it truly shows you how the street peddlars life must be in modern China. The main character is well defined enough for you to want him to better himself and as you read the book you curse him for making the mistakes which he could avoid. It is a depressing book but very realistic. This book also opens our eyes to how difficult and unhappy life is for the comman man in China. It shows the mundane life of this boy who having spent time in jail wants to become a better person and tries to reform himself. This is also the point where this story becomes universal in the sense of small time criminals, or kids gone bad, who even with best intentions have a hard time following the straight path due to their past, poverty, no support, etc. A great read, however, if you are looking for an upbeat or uplifting book, don't read this yet!

finest novel on contemporary China

Little has been translated into English by Chinese writers whose novels are set in the 1990's. Liu Heng, author of the story which formed the basis for the film, Ju Dou, fills in much of that gap with Howard Goldblatt's excellent translation. A poignant, compelling novel of unrelenting realism, "Black Snow" portrays contemporary life in Beijing in stark and everyday terms. It is a masterpiece of insight into the neglected landscape of ordinary workers existing in extraordinary times. Somehow the mundane comes alive in Liu's writing. The characters are round and, therefore, believable, unlike so many we read in other novels by both exile Chinese and American writers. Nothing is predictable yet nothing is made sensational for its own sake to merely titillate the reader. My graduate students are reading it with keen interest here in Beijing and confirm its veracity. They even admit to having learned a thing or two about the lives of street peddlars in the process. The novel addresses the question of what happens when a disaffected youth attempts to redeem himself, not so much in the eyes of others, as in his own eyes. The finest novel available in English in this genre, in my opinion.