Tiles

"Rain off the front eaves never reaches the back eaves, but tiles that have stood for a hundred or a thousand years will have their day!" This immensely resilient line, spoken by the protagonist Tian Jicheng through clenched teeth, is the resounding cry of a soul that dies but is not extinguished, the ultimate faith that sustains a family's continuity, and the genetic code of a nation's endurance. With the thunderous resonance of a great bell, Tiles opens for us a magnificent panorama of a hundred years of vicissitudes, perseverance, and struggle in Longnan, drawing us to follow the author's depiction into a Longnan land of glory and suffering, kinship and warmth, turmoil and rekindled hope, to feel its wind and rain and to enjoy its warm sunshine. Li Jianhua, author of Tiles, impelled by boundless love for his homeland and deep attachment to its people, and with a lofty sense of historical mission, records the century of modern history of the Longnan land and the century-long transformation in the fates of ordinary lives—seventy-four named individuals in all, centered on the Tian Jicheng family—from the late Qing through the Republic to the People's Republic of China. "Rain off the front eaves never reaches the back eaves, but tiles that have stood for a hundred or a thousand years will have their day. I refuse to believe that our family, from my generation onward, is doomed generation after generation to ill fortune, to become nobodies trampled and kneaded underfoot at will!" Tiles is the author's generous gift to his homeland, an offering laid before the sages, a cornerstone in the hall of Longnan history, and a crowning work of the author's career.