Ninth Building - by Zou Jingzhi (Paperback)

About the Book

Ninth Building is a fascinating collection of vignettes drawn from Zou Jingzhi's experience growing up during the Cultural Revolution, first as a boy in Beijing and then as a teenager exiled to the countryside. Zou poetically captures a side of the Cultural Revolution that is less talked about--the sheer tedium and waste of young life, as well as the gallows humor that accompanies such desperate situations.

Book Synopsis

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

Review Quotes

"These blunt, tamped-down translations of tales of youth during cultural revolution in Beijing address the grim cruelty of that time"-PEN America

About the Author

Zou Jingzhi is highly regarded in China as a fiction writer, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and
playwright. He is a founding member of the Chinese theatre collective Longmashe. As a
screenwriter, the films he wrote for Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar Wai have been well received at
film festivals across the world. His plays and operas have been performed in China as well as
internationally, and his poems and essays have been very influential, going into multiple reprints.

Jeremy Tiang has translated over twenty books from Chinese, including novels by Yan Ge, Yeng Pway Ngon, Zhang Yueran, Shuang Xuetao, Lo Yi-Chin, Chan Ho-Kei, and Geling Yan. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. He also writes and translates plays. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in New York City.