Synopses & Reviews
Seventeen-year-old Ling-ling joins a revolutionary theater group carrying out reforms in the Chinese countryside in 1949 and amid tumultous events, she grows toward maturity.
Review
"Dr. Zhivago it is not. Ditto Gone with the Wind and, for that matter, The Good Earth. Praised by John Service and Harrison Salisbury as the first great novel of the Chinese Communist takeover in 1949, The Dragon's Village is instead a well-meant but rather turgid account of a young woman's frightening experiences in a time of great upheaval. She understands nothing of what is happening: the commissars and landlords are all simple stereotypes. We must wait a while to hear the authentic voice of China." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Table of Contents
Foreword
1. To the Sound of Guns
2. A Glimpse of the Other Side
3. I Choose My Future
4. Journey to the Northwest
5. Cold Welcome in Longxiang
6. The Women
7. Meeting
8. The First Sacrifice
9. Night Shadows
10. Criticism and Self-Criticism
11. The Search
12. Two Confrontations
13. In a Grove of Trees
14. Electioneering
15. Shattered Jade
16. By a Grave, in a Wineshop
17. The Election
18. Three Deaths
19. Vacillation
20. Riding a Tiger
21. Help from a Broken Shoe
22. Getting at the Truth
23. Spring Hunger
24. Land to the Tiller