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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > Three Sisters

Three Sisters

hree Sisters is a vivid picture of life in rural and urban Communist China in the 1970s and 1980s under Mao Zedong. It is also a deeply humanist portrayal of three sisters as they fight to take control of their lives and a timely exploration of the themes of human rights and the place of women in a deeply patriarchal culture. This breathtaking story captures the all-consuming desire for power in a society obsessed with saving face. Whether it’s in the Wang family village, where life is attuned to the rhythm of work in the fields and the slogans of the Cultural Revolution, or in the Beijing of the 1980s, the sisters are not prepared to be just another wave in the ‘infinite ocean of people’.

‘A complex moral tale that also illuminates [China]’s rise from sleeping tiger to global power.’
Independent

‘A thrilling family epic.’
Xiaolu Guo

Author

Bi Feiyu

Bi Feiyu

Books

Three Sisters

Bi Feiyu is a Chinese journalist, poet, novelist and screenwriter currently living in Jiangsu Province, Nanjing. He co-wrote the script for Zhang Yimou’s Shanghai Triad. Feiyu was editor at the literary magazine Yu Hua and journalist at the Nanjing Daily for six years, though he only contributed 6,000 words during his entire time there.

Bi Feiyu often tells others’ stories rather than his own, creatively weaving his own experiences into their tales. His skilful writing has earned him a number of literary accolades: he has twice been awarded the prestigious Lu Xun Prize, and in 2010 he won the Man Asian Literary Prize for Three Sisters.

Feiyu was due to visit the UK in 2010, to attend an English PEN event promoting Three Sisters, but unfortunately his visa application was lost in red tape and the visit had to be cancelled.

Translator

Howard Curtis

Howard Curtis

Books

In The Sea There Are Crocodiles

Night Prayers

Howard Curtis is one of the top translators working in the UK.  He translates from French, Spanish and Italian, and many of his translations have been awarded or shortlisted for translation prizes.

Sylvia Li-Chun Lin

Sylvia Li-Chun Lin

Books

Three Sisters

Sylvia Li-Chun Lin is Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame. She teaches modern and contemporary Chinese literature, film, and culture. Her research interests include Western missionaries and Chinese women, women and new culture in early twentieth-century China, language and identity in Taiwan, and narrative theory. A winner of the Liang Shih-chiu Literary Translation Prize, she also co-translated Chu T’ien-wen’s Notes of a Desolate Man, winner of the 1999 Translation of the Year award from the American Literary Translators Association.

Published by

Telegram Books, 2010
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hree Sisters is a vivid picture of life in rural and urban Communist China in the 1970s and 1980s under Mao Zedong. It is also a deeply humanist portrayal of three sisters as they fight to take control of their lives and a timely exploration of the themes of human rights and the place of women in a deeply patriarchal culture. This breathtaking story captures the all-consuming desire for power in a society obsessed with saving face. Whether it’s in the Wang family village, where life is attuned to the rhythm of work in the fields and the slogans of the Cultural Revolution, or in the Beijing of the 1980s, the sisters are not prepared to be just another wave in the ‘infinite ocean of people’.

‘A complex moral tale that also illuminates [China]’s rise from sleeping tiger to global power.’
Independent

‘A thrilling family epic.’
Xiaolu Guo

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