Why read Half of Man Is Woman?

Book cover of Half of Man Is Woman

Book description

Poet Zhang Yonglin is sentenced to a labor camp he ironically describes as a haven amidst the hysteria of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. After he marries a woman he had seen eight years earlier, the story becomes, on one level, an analogy between his temporary sexual impotence and the postion…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Half of Man Is Woman as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Karl Andrews

Author

Stories can be sticky. They attach memories to places. I first visited San Francisco’s Chinatown in the early nineties. There were no mobile phones then or digital maps, so I wandered the streets and browsed the stores, admiring the green-tiled roofs and bright red lanterns, imagining I was back in Beijing. Growing hungry, I entered the first restaurant I saw. I sat, ordered, and pulled a paperback out of my coat pocket as I waited for my homestyle tofu to arrive. Diners ate. Waiters cleared plates. People picked up their takeaways. And I read.

A few minutes later, the waiter…

From Karl's list on The best books that always take me back to China.