The Noodle Maker: A Novel

From Mi Jian the highly acclaimed Chinese dissident comes a satirical novel about the absurdities of life in a post-Tiananmen China.. Two men meet for dinner each week. Over the course of one of these drunken evenings the writer recounts the stories he would write had he the courage: a young man buys an old kiln and opens a private crematorium delighting in his ability to harass the corpses of police officers and Party secretaries while swooning to banned Western music; a heartbroken actress performs a public suicide by stepping into the jaws of a wild tiger watched nonchalantly by her ex-lover. Extraordinary characters inspire him their lives pulled and pummeled by fate and politics as if they are balls of dough in the hands of an all-powerful noodle maker.. Ma Jians satirical masterpiece allows us a humorous yet profound glimpse of those struggling to survive under a system that dictates their every move.