Larry’s Kidney is the barely-believable and, if true, rather shocking story of how the author helped his cousin procure a black-market kidney in China. Larry is obese, diabetic, a dialysis patient, and he has never met a vegetable he would care to eat, but in the end he does get a kidney transplant from an [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘China’
March 27, 2009
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li
Perhaps I should pick less dark novels? The Vagrants tells the story of a Chinese town after the Cultural Revolution where a supposed “counter-revolutionary” is savagely executed (and her kidneys given to a high-ranking officials) and the ensuing popular protest is squashed just as savagely. To enliven the story add the distressed parents of the [...]
December 12, 2008
Factory Girls by Leslie Chang
What an interesting book, despite its flaws! Factory Girls tells the story of the young women who work in Dongguan, a city close to Hong-Kong where, it seems, all the luxury bags of the world (think Coach and Gucci) and many sneakers are manufactured, along with many other items. The women are very young; in theory [...]
August 8, 2008
The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi
The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is the story of a Shanghai woman whose adult life starts by starring in a beauty pageant and ends in poverty. It’s always difficult to appreciate translated work. This novel mixes lyrical descriptions (not my cup of tea, admittedly) with stilted considerations on how women must submit to men (not [...]
