Ninth Building

Ninth Building is a fascinating collection of vignettes drawn from Zou Jingzhi’s experience
growing up during the Cultural Revolution, first as a boy in Beijing and then as a teenager exiled
to the countryside. Zou poetically captures a side of the Cultural Revolution that is less talked
about—the sheer tedium and waste of young life, as well as the gallows humor that
accompanies such desperate situations. Jeremy Tiang’s enthralling translation of this important
work of fiction was awarded a PEN/Heim Grant.