Ninth Building

Ninth Building is a fascinating collection of vignettes drawn from Zou Jingzhi's experiencegrowing up during the Cultural Revolution, first as a boy in Beijing and then as a teenager exiledto the countryside. Zou poetically captures a side of the Cultural Revolution that is less talkedabout--the sheer tedium and waste of young life, as well as the gallows humor thataccompanies such desperate situations. Jeremy Tiang's enthralling translation of this importantwork of fiction was awarded a PEN/Heim Grant.