The Rice Sprout Song
by Eileen Chang, Eileen Chang 張愛玲
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Description
The first of Eileen Chang's novels to be written in English, The Rice-Sprout Song portrays the horror and absurdity that the land-reform movement brings to a southern village in China during the early 1950s. Contrary to the hopes of the peasants in this story, the redistribution of land does not mean an end to hunger. Man-made and natural disasters bring about the threat of famine, while China's involvement in the Korean War further deepens the peasants' misery. Chang's chilling depiction of show more the peasants' desperate attempts to survive both the impending famine and government abuse makes for spellbinding reading. Her critique of communism rewrites the land-reform discourse at the same time it lays bare the volatile relations between politics and literature. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
My first book by her. I think I'll have to try another. Interesting story but just not enough meat there for me. Time to find another one and see how it goes. (Ang Lee's film of her short story "Lust, Caution," however, is brilliant!)
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Author Information
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Das Reispflanzerlied
- Original title
- The rice sprout song
- Original publication date
- 1955
- People/Characters*
- Yuexiang; Jin'gen
- Important places*
- China
- First words*
- Das Erste, was von dem Marktflecken in Sicht kam, waren genau gleiche, strohbedeckte Latrinen, sieben oder acht an der Zahl.
- Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Unter dem unermesslich weiten Himmel klang es jedoch gedämpft und kraftlos.
- Original language*
- Amerikanisch
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 57
- Popularity
- 535,320
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- Chinese, English, German
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 9
