China in Ten Words
by Yu Hua (translated by Allan Barr)
Pantheon
In 2009 Yu Hua wrote a piece in The New York Times to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
Yu used the politically loaded word renmin ('the people') as a prism through which to view the uprising. Party leaders continually pay lip service to a collective communist ideal of 'the people'. Yet here, renmin was used to ponder a very different kind of people-power.
The piece became the starting point for a larger collection of essays. China in Ten Words is Yu's first non-fiction book to be published in English (a Mandarin version is available in Taiwan). Quite simply, it is a triumph.
The book's 10 chapters revolve around 10 words - ranging from 'leader' to writer 'Lu Xun' to 'grass roots' - which dig superbly into the graft and grit of a complex, constantly changing, kingdom.
As a child of the Cultural Revolution, Yu - alongside an established canon of Chinese writers, including Bi Feiyu and Su Tong - writes with pathos and intelligence about the era that defined his generation.
Over the past 20 years, his acclaimed novels have included Brothers, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant and To Live (adapted into the banned Zhang Yimou film of the same name).