In the title story, twenty-year-old Sophie, sick with tuberculosis, spends her days languishing in a small hostel room in Beijing, penning letters to friends and writing in her diary. When friends come to visit, they bring with them an attractive Chinese man named Ling. Sophie becomes obsessed with Ling, despite the loyal courting of another man and Ling's own preoccupation with material success and dalliances at brothels. She writes, "At a time like this language and words seem so useless. My heart feels as if it's being gnawed by hordes of mice, or as if a brazier were burning inside it." Ding Ling's frankness about the power of emotions and sexual desire are refreshing in a country where the existence of women's feelings have been largely denied for centuries and at a time (the late 1920s to early 1940s) when foreign invasion and mass economic deprivation are constant. The other eight stories in the collection depict choices made by young Chinese people struggling with their own emotions and the violent events of modern China. Ding Ling writes from experience; in 1933, at the age of twenty-nine, she was imprisoned by the nationalist government for three years. An ardent communist, she creates stories that reflect her beliefs without sacrificing memorable characters. The translated stories occasionally have awkward expressions, and standard punctuation is noticeably absent; still, the stories captivate with their insight into the human conditions of pre-revolution China.

by Ding Ling
Panda Books / 271 pages