The Bathing Women
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize
A modern Chinese classic
Sisters Tiao and Fan grew up in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution.
They witnessed immense suffering, including the death of their baby sister in a tragic accident. It was an accident they could have prevented; an accident that will stay with them forever.
In the China of the 1990s the sisters lead seemingly successful lives.
Tiao is a successful children’s publisher but incapable of finding love. Fan has moved to America, desperate to shun her Chinese heritage. Then there is their childhood friend Fei: beautiful, hedonistic and outwardly ambitious.
As the women grapple with love, rivalry and past secrets will they find the freedom and redemption they crave?
Spellbinding, unforgettable, and an important chronicle of modern China, The Bathing Women is a powerful and beautiful portrait of the strength of female friendship in the face of adversity.
Reviews
‘If I were to pick the ten best literary works in the world of the past ten years, I would definitely rank THE BATHING WOMEN among them’ Kenzaburō Ōe, Nobel Laureate
‘As this spirited quartet chase their dreams against a backdrop of shifting cultural values, the novel – a million-copy seller in China – blends romance and feminism to paint an intimate portrait of these women’s ambitions, appetites and rivalries’ DAILY MAIL
‘[A] fascinating story of sisters growing up in the shadow of the cultural revolution’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
‘Intelligent and evocative writing … about the shaping effect of deprivation and how people may still draw reservoirs of love and kindness from these voids’ SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
‘Tie Ning’s unique novel about three Chinese women and their struggles In today’s fast-changing China is as gorgeous as the Cezanne painting the novel takes its title from’ Xinran, author of THE GOOD WOMEN OF CHINA
‘A probing and gracefully written portrait of an extended Chinese family, related by blood and mystery, in which the author explores areas of human behavior traditionally considered off-limits: the intimate and sexual lives of ordinary Chinese women’ Hannah Pakula, author of THE LAST EMPRESS
About the author
Tie Ning won a national short story award at the age of twenty-five and is the recipient of numerous other literary prizes. She has published ten books—collections of short fiction, essays, and novels—three of which were made into movies and television series, including The Bathing Women. In 2006, at the age of forty-nine, she was elected president of the Chinese Writers Association, becoming the youngest writer and first woman to be honored in this way. Her works have been translated into Russian, German, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, and Vietnamese. The Bathing Women is her first work to be translated into English.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tie s English-language debut traces the relationships that enmesh Tiao, a girl who lives through China s Cultural Revolution to become a successful publisher in the 1990s. Left on their own while their parents are made to labor at Reed River Farm, Tiao and her sister Fan are inseparable. Their mother, Wu, agrees to sleep with a doctor in order to get sick leave and stay at home with the children. She tries to conceal the resulting pregnancy, but the doctor s sophisticated and reckless niece, Fei, arrives and tells Tiao that her mom is a bad woman, a whore! The loner Fei and Tiao, however, soon become friends and, along with another child, Youyou, form a lifelong alliance. An accident with ominous overtones forces Tiao and Fan to examine what drives sisters apart. Eventually Fan marries and moves to America. And Tiao, after a tumultuous affair with a movie star, finds solace in a friendship with a married man and childhood friend, although the relationship raises questions about the sacrifices made so others can be happy. Set amidst shifting cultural values, this is a psychologically astute portrait of four women struggling to satisfy their appetites for food, camaraderie, family, community, sex, and love.
