A01=Mu Cao
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Mu Cao
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B06=Scott E. Myers
Beijing
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DS
Category=FP
China
Chinesesociety
COP=United Kingdom
Crematorium
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Economicstruggle
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Exploitation
Gaymen
HenanProvince
Identity
Impoverished
Language_English
Love
Marginalized
Migrantworker
Nonlinearnarrative
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
Queerliterature
Relationships
Rurallife
Sexualexploitation
softlaunch
Survival
workingclass
Product details
- ISBN 9781803094441
- Weight: 626g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 11 Feb 2025
- Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Mu Cao is a bold, pioneering Chinese novelist who dares to challenge the status quo—living openly gay in China and shedding a strong light on the plight of everyday Chinese. This is a humorous, magical realist novel that explores the exploitation of the young living in China’s poor countryside.
“Those who know me call me Old He, and they also know that I’ve worked in a crematorium for my entire life.” Here begins Mu Cao’s novel In the Face of Death We Are Equal, an unrelentingly realistic portrait of working-class gay men in the underbelly of Chinese society. He Donghai is days away from his sixtieth birthday and long-awaited retirement from his job as a corpse burner at a Beijing crematorium. As he approaches the momentous day, he reflects on his life and his relationship with a special group of young men who live and love on the margins of Chinese society. One of them is Ah Qing, a young migrant worker who leaves his village in Henan Province to earn a living in cities—and who has an unexpected personal connection to He. Through a disrupted and nonlinear narrative technique, and alternating between first, second, and third person, In the Face of Death We Are Equal tells the story of Ah and other young men like him.
Sometimes enraging, often humorous, but always powerful, this novel explores the economic and sexual exploitation of young men and women from China’s impoverished countryside who seek survival in the shadow of China’s economic “miracle.” Deftly translated by Scott E. Myers, it is the first title in Seagull’s new Pride List, which showcases important queer writing from around the world. Written in Mu Cao’s trademark earthy, sometimes graphic, idiom, In the Face of Death We Are Equal will be a valuable addition to queer and Chinese literature in translation.
“Those who know me call me Old He, and they also know that I’ve worked in a crematorium for my entire life.” Here begins Mu Cao’s novel In the Face of Death We Are Equal, an unrelentingly realistic portrait of working-class gay men in the underbelly of Chinese society. He Donghai is days away from his sixtieth birthday and long-awaited retirement from his job as a corpse burner at a Beijing crematorium. As he approaches the momentous day, he reflects on his life and his relationship with a special group of young men who live and love on the margins of Chinese society. One of them is Ah Qing, a young migrant worker who leaves his village in Henan Province to earn a living in cities—and who has an unexpected personal connection to He. Through a disrupted and nonlinear narrative technique, and alternating between first, second, and third person, In the Face of Death We Are Equal tells the story of Ah and other young men like him.
Sometimes enraging, often humorous, but always powerful, this novel explores the economic and sexual exploitation of young men and women from China’s impoverished countryside who seek survival in the shadow of China’s economic “miracle.” Deftly translated by Scott E. Myers, it is the first title in Seagull’s new Pride List, which showcases important queer writing from around the world. Written in Mu Cao’s trademark earthy, sometimes graphic, idiom, In the Face of Death We Are Equal will be a valuable addition to queer and Chinese literature in translation.
Mu Cao has no diplomas, is not a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association, and publishes almost entirely outside of official channels. He has been described as a folk poet and a “voice from the bottom of Chinese society.” His avant-garde novels, poetry, and short story collections include The Transsexual Age, A Treasured Book of Sunflowers, Selected Poems of Mu Cao, and Scream of a Hundred Lan Yus. He lives in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. Scott E. Myers is a translator of Chinese who focuses on contemporary queer fiction. He lives in Monterey, California.
