The Noodle Maker - Softcover

Jian, Ma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0701176059 ISBN 13: 9780701176051

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2004

Synopsis

Written in the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre, The Noodle Maker is a virtuoso piece of 'red humour' - a darkly funny novel about the absurdities and cruelties of life in modern China. Every week, a writer of political propaganda and a professional blood-donor meet for dinner. They make unlikely friends, the one tortured by the desire for intellectual excellence, the other more concerned with the down-to-earth practicalities of life. Nevertheless, the writer enjoys the blood-donor's company, perhaps because, as the richer of the two, he provides the dinner. Over the course of one especially gastronomic and drunken evening, the writer moves from complaints about his latest commission - the composition of an epic account of a Communist hero - to recount the stories he would really like to write, had he the freedom. A young man buys an old kiln from an art school and opens a private crematorium, delighting in his ability to harass the corpses of police officers and Party secretaries; an illegal migrant scrapes a living writing letters for the illiterate, but becomes so immersed in the lives of others that he loses a grip on his own; a heartbroken actress performs a public suicide.

About this title

Review:

"Compelling, inventive and bleakly funny" (Big Issue)

"Deep black humour...owes a debt to Italo Calvino" (Daily Telegraph)

"Ma's writing shines a light that is both humane and angry into some of the dustiest corners of a closed and often forgotten society" (Observer)

"Playful and wonderfully dark...a Chinese Kundera" (Philip Marsden)

"Compelling, inventive and bleakly funny"

"Deep black humour...owes a debt to Italo Calvino"

"Ma's writing shines a light that is both humane and angry into some of the dustiest corners of a closed and often forgotten society"

"Playful and wonderfully dark...a Chinese Kundera"

Book Description:

'Playful and wonderfully dark, The Noodle Maker confirms Ma Jian as a Chinese Kundera. The funniest book I've read in a long time' Philip Marsden

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0701176059
• ISBN 13: 9780701176051
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192