The City's Lamp

Name: The City's Lamp
ISBN: 9787506347631

Li PeifuWriters Publishing House · ChinaMar 2025

4.2

Word count: 247K words
Chapters: 58
ISBN: 9787506347631

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Summary

In order to become an urbanite, the rural youth Feng Jiachang suppresses and constrains himself to the utmost, struggling in a vortex of emotion and breaking through the maze of power, until he finally completes the battle to "march into" the city for himself and his entire family. The novel displays the forbearance and cleverness of peasants while criticizing the irrationality of this state of affairs, calling for the early arrival of change in the times and for the reshaping of a healthy personality. Through a mutual reflection of history and reality, Li Peifu offers insight into the arduous journey of peasants "escaping" the countryside and entering the city within China's urban-rural dual structure.

Editor's review

Li Peifu's The Lamp of the City is a profound and incisive work of realism that won the 9th Mao Dun Literature Prize and holds a Douban rating of 8.7, a testament to its standing among readers and in literary circles. Rather than a simple rural narrative, the novel follows protagonist Feng Jiachang's struggle and transformation from countryside to city, dissecting the startling conflicts and tensions between individual and collective, tradition and modernity, rural ethics and urban law during China's social transformation. With a cold, precise touch, the author maps the complex spectrum of human nature under the core proposition of "escaping the land"—the craving for dignity, the clinging to power, the betrayal and redemption of emotion. The "city" as a seductive bright lamp is rendered with both hope and a hidden, searing cruelty. In the editor's view, the novel's value lies beyond its story: it offers a superb cross-section for observing the psychological shifts of Chinese society in recent decades. It offers no cheap consolation, forcing readers to confront the truth of existence and the price of choice; its literary texture and intellectual depth reward repeated reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with deep interest in contemporary China's social change and urban-rural relations
Lovers of serious literature who seek textual weight and intellectual substance
Readers hoping to understand individual fate intertwined with grand narrative in a specific historical period
Those interested in the complexity of human nature, moral dilemmas, and the philosophy of existence

Not a good fit for

Casual readers seeking light entertainment and fast-paced plots
Readers with a natural aversion to rural themes or heavy narrative styles

Reading tips

Read in a relatively quiet setting conducive to immersive reflection, to fully appreciate the text's tension and detail.
Pay attention to the author's symbolic descriptions of nature and psychology; they are often key to understanding the themes.
After finishing, pause to reflect or discuss the characters' choices with others—this deepens understanding of the work.

About the publisher

Writers Publishing House China · Founded in 1953

Writers Publishing House is a Chinese publisher focused mainly on literary publishing. Its output covers classical literature, foreign literature, folk literature and Eastern philosophy, with some extension into popular reading such as social fiction and parenting books. Its catalogue contains more than 900 titles, including representative works such as Dream of the Red Chamber and its edited editions, Shakespeare's Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and foreign literary classics such as The Brothers Karamazov and Lost Illusions. In terms of authors, it includes classical writers such as Cao Xueqin and Gao E, foreign masters such as William Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Balzac, and translations by translators such as Zhu Shenghao, Geng Jizhi and Fu Lei. Overall, its publishing profile balances Chinese and foreign literary classics, emphasizes quality translations, and serves both academic and general readers; publicly available information on its specific publishing plans is limited.

版权信息
第一章
一、会跑的树
二、挂在梁上的点心匣子
三、扎在脚上的十二颗蒺藜
四、不会叫的蝈蝈笼子
五、人，一个人；手，两只手
六、藏在谷垛里的红柿
第二章
一、写在地上的“枪眼”
二、立正，稍息，向右看齐
三、长在纸上的心
四、红楼的“影子”
五、布菜的方法
六、舞场上的“羊”
第三章
一、茄子，茄子！
二、女人的宣言
三、字门儿与字背儿
四、手是苦的，心是甜的
五、嫂啊，嫂！
第四章
一、举起你的双手
二、你喜欢这个火柴匣子吗
三、“标尺”死了
四、谁是俘虏
五、看好我的棋盘
六、雪做的旗帜
第五章
一、谁家的喜鹊叫了
二、城里没有星星
三、一个牙印儿
四、向蚂蚁敬礼
五、一百六十步
六、气做的骨头
第六章
一、一箭双雕
二、走失的脸
三、九主意
四、跪的智慧
五、不平等条约
六、人也是植物
七、一把笤帚的力量
第七章
一、于美凤
二、苏武牧羊
三、我嘴里有糖
四、《上梁方言》的注释
第八章
一、钟声响了
二、礼仪树
三、美是一种希望
四、月亮花
五、告示牌
六、六头小兽
第九章
一、香姑坟
二、五个蛋儿

FAQ

What is the theme of The Lamp of the City?

The core theme is the spiritual struggle, human alienation, and ethical dilemmas experienced by individuals (represented by Feng Jiachang) pursuing upward mobility during rural China's transformation into a modern urban society, exploring the cost of "escape" and the loss of "roots."

How does this book relate to The Book of Life?

The Lamp of the City, The Book of Life, and The Sheep Gate together form Li Peifu's "Central Plains Trilogy." They share a connected background (all set in the "Sheep Land" of the central Henan plain) and echo one another thematically, depicting the social structure and human landscape of the Central Plains from different angles. The Lamp of the City focuses more on an individual's trajectory from village to city.

What is the novel's writing style?

Li Peifu's style is solid, cold, and richly poetic; his narrative is dense and weighty, his psychological portraiture profound, and his language rooted in the soil of the Central Plains—carrying both an earthy breath and the precise force of literary refinement, presenting overall a somber yet powerful realist aesthetic.

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About the author

Li Peifu Author · China · 1953

Li Peifu, born in October 1953 in Xuchang, Henan, is a contemporary Chinese writer and a national first-class writer. He has served as deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine Mangyuan, vice chairman of the Henan Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and chairman of the Henan Provincial Writers Association, and has long taken the "plain" as his literary territory. His representative works include The Sheep's Gate, The City's Lamp, The Book of Life, and Plains Guests; in 2015 he won the Ninth Mao Dun Literature Prize for The Book of Life. His writing focuses largely on the rural society of the Central Plains, portraying human relations and ordinary people's struggles between countryside and city, with a steady, grounded style that interweaves personal fate with social change. Besides novels, he has published the Selected Novels of Li Peifu, the novella and short-story collection The Boundless Morning, and Red Grasshopper, Green Grasshopper, as well as The Golden House and The Li Family: The Seventeenth Generation. His work is often classified as social fiction and classic literature, and he remains an influential figure in contemporary Chinese letters.