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Summary
It tells the stories of a group of ordinary, unassuming laborers.
They are blasters, stone haulers, village carpenters, farmers, farm wives, small workshop owners…
And the writer's own story runs through it all: blasting rock five thousand meters underground, supporting a family amid dust and roar, writing poems in work sheds and in the wild, recording fate's explosions and silences.
Though weathered by life, they are honest and tough, quietly telling of family, love, death, and desire…
This is a book of life, and a book of death, and in the end, a book of living.
What is the world like? What is life like? In my sense of it, apart from the long, everywhere-present wind, all the rest is dust, and we rush about within it, trying to stand firm, but more often than not we stagger, unable to help ourselves.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who enjoy nonfiction prose and care about the lives of ordinary people
- Readers interested in working-class writing and mining and rural subjects
- Writing enthusiasts who want to learn how to write true experience in restrained language
- Teachers and students who need to discuss contemporary Chinese nonfiction in class or book clubs
Not a good fit for
- Readers hoping for complete sociological analysis or data surveys
- Casual readers who prefer light, humorous, briskly paced essays
- Those sensitive to depictions of illness, death, and hardship
Reading tips
- Read one or two essays a day, leaving time to digest the emotions; no need to finish in one sitting
- When something strikes you, note the people and scenes, linking the recurring themes of family and death throughout the book
- Write a short journal entry drawing on your own family or work experience, and feel the restrained power of nonfiction writing
About the publisher
Tianjin People's Publishing House publishes across such fields as classic works, foreign literature, architecture, social culture and social sciences, with 749 relevant titles in the collection. In the areas of classics and scholarship, works such as Wang Guowei's Renjian Cihua and Fei Xiaotong's From the Soil and Fertility and Reproduction reflect a sustained attention to social culture and classic texts of thought. Architectural books are represented by Liang Sicheng's Annotated Yingzao Fashi and A History of Chinese Architecture, showing an emphasis on architectural heritage and building traditions. In foreign literature, translations of Sholokhov's And Quiet Flows the Don and Tolstoy's War and Peace and The Death of Ivan Ilyich, through the work of translators such as Li Gang and Yu Dawei, form a substantial series of translated works. Overall, the press combines classic texts, scholarly works and fine translations, with a publishing character oriented toward humanistic depth and the dissemination of knowledge.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 序
- 自序
- 我的朋友周大明
- 那一年，在秦岭黑山
- 那场旷日持久的矿事
- 不曾远游的母亲
- 父亲这辈子
- 手术
- 陪读的日子
- 割漆的人
- 葫芦记
- 野猪凶猛
- 一九八七年的老腔
- 表弟余海
- 吃相凶猛的人
- 在苦盏
- 南地十年
- 用平板电脑写诗的人
- 北京的秋天
- 一位青年的球状生活
- 一路有你
- 小城里的文人们
- 一个人的炸药史
- 后记
FAQ
Is this book fiction or nonfiction?
What does the title “Dust” mean?
Is this book too depressing? When is a good time to read it?
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About the author
Chen Nianxi is an author about whom little public information is currently available; his writing centers on modern poetry and prose essays, with some engagement in folk literature. Eight of his works are held in the collection, including the poetry collections Blasting Chronicle, The Poems of Chen Nianxi, and Breathing Spring Deeply, the prose collections Tiny Dust, Inn of the Human World, and The Ceiling of Prose: The Power of Top-Level Writing (seven volumes), as well as The Westward Flow of the Xia River and All the Nameless People. These works suggest that his writing focuses on the lives of ordinary people and on rural experience, in a plain yet forceful language whose restrained emotion is nonetheless full, giving him a distinctive personal voice in contemporary poetry and prose.
