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Beijing Coma

2008 novel by Ma Jian

Summary

2008 novel by Ma Jian

FieldValue
nameBeijing Coma
translatorFlora Drew
imageFile:CoverofBeijingComa.jpg
authorMa Jian
countryUnited States
languageChinese
publisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
english_release_dateMay 27, 2008
media_typePrint
pages592 ppg
isbn0374110174

Beijing Coma () is a 2008 novel by Ma Jian. It was translated from Chinese by Flora Drew. The Chinese government has since banned the book. Ma has stated that he wrote the book "to reclaim history from a totalitarian government whose role is to erase it" and named the novel Beijing Coma in reference to this. Beijing Coma was listed as one of The New York Times "100 Notable Books of 2008".

Synopsis

The book follows the character of Dai Wei, a man who awakens from a coma to discover that ten years have passed since he was shot in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. The book's narrative switches between Dai Wei's time as a non-responsive coma patient to his life before his shooting.

Reception

Critical reception for the book was positive, with Tash Aw calling it "a landmark".

Pankaj Mishra compared Beijing Coma with the work of writers such as Milan Kundera, Josef Škvorecký and Ivan Klíma.

Controversy

In April 2012 Ma protested the choice of China as the guest of honor at the London Book Fair. Ma used red paint to smear a cross over his face and attempted to present a copy of Beijing Coma to Liu Binjie, but was stopped by security. Ma called his Chinese publisher a "mouthpiece of the Chinese communist party" and claimed that he had been manhandled while trying to give Liu his book.

References

References

  1. Mishra, Pankaj. (30 June 2008). "Tiananmen's Wake: A novel of hope and cynicism". Condé Nast Publications.
  2. Smallwood, Christine. (May 25, 2008). "Cage of bones". Los Angeles Times.
  3. Stone, Beth. "Beijing Coma". Socialist Review.
  4. (4 June 2009). "Tiananmen remembered". BBC News.
  5. (December 4, 2008). "100 notable books of 2008". The New York Times.
  6. Lasdun, James. (2 May 2008). "Children of the revolution". The Guardian.
  7. Row, Jess. (July 13, 2008). "Circling the Square". The New York Times.
  8. Cheuse, Alan. (June 29, 2008). "'Beijing Coma' fuses China's past, present". SF Gate.
  9. Aw, Tash. (26 Apr 2008). "A story of Tiananmen Square". Telegraph.
  10. Kakutani, Michiko. (July 4, 2008). "A Broken Body in Shiny, New China". The New York Times.
  11. Lane, Victoria. (17 Apr 2012). "A Letter from China". Telegraph.
  12. Page, Benedicte. (19 April 2012). "Ma Jian protest paints the London Book Fair red". The Guardian.
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

2008-chinese-novels 1989-tiananmen-square-protests-and-massacre novels-set-in-china book-censorship-in-china censored-books
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