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A Worker's Memoir of the New China
Atlas & Co.
April 2008
On Sale: April 14, 2008
320 pages ISBN: 0977743373 EAN: 9780977743377 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
A spirited memoir by a former Chinese factory worker who
grew up in Nanjing, participated in the Tiananmen Square
protest, and ended up an international
journalist.
Lijia Zhang worked as a teenager in a
factory producing missiles designed to reach North America,
queuing every month to give evidence to the "period police"
that she wasn't pregnant. In the oppressive routine of
guarded compounds and political meetings, Zhang's
disillusionment with "The Glorious Cause" drove her to study
English, which strengthened her intellectual
independence—from bright, western-style clothes, to
organizing the largest demonstration by Nanjing workers in
support of the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989. By
narrating the changes in her own life, Zhang chronicles the
momentous shift in China's economic policy: her factory,
still an ICBM manufacturer, won the bid to cast a giant
bronze Buddha as the whole country went mad for
profit.
Written in English, "Socialism Is
Great!" is a testament to Zhang's personal triumph over
the controlled existence that was supposed to be her destiny.
No awards found for this book.
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