Unsung heroes - review of Lotus, by Zhang Lijia

First reviews of journalist Zhang Lijia´s touching Lotus: A Novel, are coming in, like here from the Star Tribune, focusing on the Chinese migrants, the unsung heroes who made the country´s economic development possible. "Lotus and Bing, as well as the secondary characters, feel like real, rounded human beings. Zhang portrays them compassionately."

The Star Tribune:

Still, it is a novel, not a sociological treatise. Lotus and Bing, as well as the secondary characters, feel like real, rounded human beings. Zhang portrays them compassionately: At one point Bing remarks that the uneducated migrants from the provinces are “China’s unsung heroes,” whose cheap labor has made the country’s economic miracle possible, and the novel does indeed find heroism in their struggles and conflicts while telling a darn good story at the same time. 

Although the narrative of a young girl from the provinces struggling to make it in the big city is a familiar one, the novel’s texture, setting and thought patterns seem specifically Chinese. While “Lotus” sometimes reads as if it were translated from Chinese (it is not), that is part of its charm, anchoring us in a world outside American experience.

More at the Star Tribune.

Zhang Lijia

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