num_pages: 192
description: From Mi Jian, the highly acclaimed Chinese dissident, comes a satirical novel about the absurdities of life in a post-Tiananmen China.Two men meet for dinner each week. Over the course of one of these drunken evenings, the writer recounts the stories he would write, had he the courage: a young man buys an old kiln and opens a private crematorium, delighting in his ability to harass the corpses of police officers and Party secretaries, while swooning to banned Western music; a heartbroken actress performs a public suicide by stepping into the jaws of a wild tiger, watched nonchalantly by her ex-lover. Extraordinary characters inspire him, their lives pulled and pummeled by fate and politics, as if they are balls of dough in the hands of an all-powerful noodle maker.Ma Jian's satirical masterpiece allows us a humorous, yet profound, glimpse of those struggling to survive under a system that dictates their every move.
language: English
title: The Noodle Maker
titlecomplete: The Noodle Maker
genres: Asian Literature, Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, Chinese Literature, Asia, Short Stories, Fiction, Humor, China
ratings_count: 1060
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: PEN Translation Prize
category: Flora Drew
publisher: Picador