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.