Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai
    Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai
    Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai
    Ebook198 pages3 hours

    Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai

    By Qiu Xiaolong

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Published originally in the pages of Le Monde, this collection of linked short stories by Qiu Xiaolong has already been a major bestseller in France (Cite de la Poussiere Rouge) and Germany (Das Tor zur Roten Gasse), where it and the author was the subject of a major television documentary. The stories in Years of Red Dust trace the changes in modern China over fifty years—from the early days of the Communist revolution in 1949 to the modernization movement of the late nineties—all from the perspective of one small street in Shanghai, Red Dust Lane. From the early optimism at the end of the Chinese Civil War, through the brutality and upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, to the death of Mao, the pro-democracy movement and the riots in Tiananmen Square—history, on both an epic and personal scale, unfolds through the bulletins posted and the lives lived in this one lane, this one corner of Shanghai.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 28, 2010
    ISBN9781429942614
    Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai
    Author

    Qiu Xiaolong

    Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai and, since 1988, has lived in St. Louis, Missouri. A poet and a translator, he has an MA and a Ph.D. from Washington University. He is the author of several previous novels featuring Inspector Chen, including the award-winning Death of a Red Heroine and A Case of Two Cities.

    Related to Years of Red Dust

    Related ebooks

    Short Stories For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How High We Go In The Dark

      Dec 29, 2021

      ▸ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 304 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Sequoia Nagamatsu ▸ Publisher Bloomsbury There are surprisingly few SF stories about death. Sure, many books and films kill off characters. But only a handful – like Tarkovsky’s Solaris, or Te

      1 min read

    • Article

      Mr. Rain Jacket

      May 20, 2019

      Mr. Rain Jacket
      10 min read

    • Article

      Following a Thread

      Sep 19, 2019

      Following a Thread
      6 min read

    • Article

      Three Outsiders In Makhanda

      Nov 24, 2023

      Three Outsiders In Makhanda
      9 min read

    • Article

      Mullet Street

      Jun 1, 2022

      Mullet Street
      4 min read

    • Article

      Woman About Town

      Apr 27, 2023

      THE SHOW BY MEXICAN ARTIST Bosco Sodi at the Palazzo Vendramin Grimani divided opinion in Venice last year. What Goes Around Comes Around was described as a reconfiguring of the journey of raw materials which had conventionally flowed just one way in

      3 min read

    • Article

      NYC With Love.

      Jun 4, 2019

      NYC With Love.
      3 min read

    • Article

      Wiltshire’s Rail Commuters Hit The Buffers

      Aug 25, 2021

      In the late 1920s, Evelyn Waugh was staying with the Sitwells at Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire. Standing on the terrace, Sir George Sitwell stood silently, gazing out across the valley. Eventually, he turned and spoke to Evelyn ‘in the wistful, nostalg

      3 min read

    • Article

      Document

      Mar 23, 2023

      n"This book encapsulates everything I loved about Soho. It's about what was an underbelly of London, where everything came together - underground drinking places, an eccentric literary scene, sex, everything Soho represented at that time. I started w

      5 min read

    • Article

      Man About Town

      Sep 30, 2021

      IN THRALL TO THE STONE-AGE superstition that we will drop down dead if we hear certain forbidden phonemes, society (“borne back ceaselessly into the past”) has now reached the next anthropological taboo, to wit, images: people skulk in terror past st

      4 min read

    • Article

      London Life Need To Know

      Jun 7, 2023

      London Life Need To Know
      6 min read

    • Article

      Secrets of Soho

      Dec 3, 2020

      Secrets of Soho
      9 min read

    • Article

      My Interiors Life: Weaned On The Small Screen

      Nov 25, 2021

      FOR ME, IT WAS ALL DOWN TO what I saw on the box (which was a lot) — and this extended too to the arenas of action: a fantastic littering of such beautiful and extraordinary interiors, not one of which had I ever set foot in, nor even so much as glim

      9 min read

    • Article

      Lucky Brummies

      Mar 9, 2022

      Lucky Brummies
      4 min read

    • Article

      London Life Need to Know

      Oct 4, 2023

      London Life Need to Know
      7 min read

    • Article

      Life Imitates Art

      Jan 2, 2020

      Life Imitates Art
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Years of Red Dust

    3.5/5

    23 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      The story of a block in Shanghai over decades of Communist rule is interesting for the historical perspective, but there is not much of a sense of what makes Shanghai unique among Chinese metropolises.

      The stories in this book read like simple moral fables: they are fine and well-written, but predictable and not particularly compelling.
    • 4/5
      This short story cycle is set in what I believe is a fictional street, Red Dust Lane, in Shanghai. The stories are each labeled with a year -- starting in 1949 and ending in 2005. They all begin with prefatory material "This is the last issue of The Red Dust Lane Blackboard Newsletter for the year XXXX" which serves as a frame for the story that follows, generally a simple story of the local residents, often with their daily lives shaped by the massive events around them.

      By themselves, none of the individual stories are outstanding. But the whole is greater the sum of the parts and collectively they form an enchanting social history of modern urban China. They have a certain rhythm and repetition that grows on you, with a few repeated characters and, in at least two cases, a follow-up story set several decades after the original.
    • 4/5
      This short story cycle is set in what I believe is a fictional street, Red Dust Lane, in Shanghai. The stories are each labeled with a year -- starting in 1949 and ending in 2005. They all begin with prefatory material "This is the last issue of The Red Dust Lane Blackboard Newsletter for the year XXXX" which serves as a frame for the story that follows, generally a simple story of the local residents, often with their daily lives shaped by the massive events around them.By themselves, none of the individual stories are outstanding. But the whole is greater the sum of the parts and collectively they form an enchanting social history of modern urban China. They have a certain rhythm and repetition that grows on you, with a few repeated characters and, in at least two cases, a follow-up story set several decades after the original.

    Book preview

    Years of Red Dust - Qiu Xiaolong

    2abook_preview_excerpt.html}[ۮFv%Hcd Ov{<-qwИy+%Z$f#e~o$k]EQm#u$^vk_/Rx|/orl~]Ւr}3zgoZoߛ!^wK-.ssK=}ӻokڼoحJ5,1p<*\ e| 7&_oͻ95~Kxh(s5.rM}fC>5oOxɅ]xQqԻ78Cʡ[6n&\n #Nwcvwo7άwp {|nO1vVhgUXhiB8wNnҼj['ǧtZB3*?Sx?{ 堓COs<ąƃG**-.qzsClF}uh! eҮ/4 K8LqI'(s潄ISCnp<Mx^(6Ǚʆ֎1v{h8{kОpGǧ{כ]e9r.*B~n^_s91ݿC|ޜ.%/_>' }q#\yq?T%.ulpɟF7^C9 'u4$nMZُ0Wjw>CpUwm,Cw3j.alMa 舦s}GS\'03^o۽;;Y&ƣGH`=dlv@@5]SaV>'8\p>!:6o+!ވnpP7o[4 ie3E`JG']g[=hd8뛃=Cho|N'@7 H!y!XÀLv.%yi8T\$_>ȳ#B3 @eaw@MEiޚ]v|q;42YFTܝnOjo'y0aZ^;<7IUgfP 9T(e 8 $)3uݾn{lL@ǂ)m^Q!^ȵ^1Iԃ2\g;n^XkPCIOzr ކMY$`zb{FNPL@-JMv'g&j]NM{~4"@vJU-T}V `諝e;㪵y ]5y^ۄ*hS!Jj|K8fJ_XXu6-ZϢvڔoSq|+!>8&72OHu%ZG2;\e!.#Z`磰LMs@Ͳ-vu p'^0-c!9;\'j#p Xq+! AJNܠ g6~ɛ^|KӉ,["MhK'wYBn_~|~C:d+ضmp91@sIK!/燶KT\.ZY7a# Hd UUߨ@q蓏ku-9)h뀺ˊ+$X0:0A2X<#BG.DRϪ0R lYy{{${ku+oW?0hp%Wc(R4Y=94 gVBI w~ԩ2ZJU}* ؀յaq[P:SL( tqwqU ɦ_q˜K?b[^!_|تS&wuRA#l3$$H'yґ,9eVF; TQd .B:k:x^۲rzcTW$>OB'Ekpxvn)jmySϔץKuKG mh`3w`=}6Rؤuf維Ӫ 9Bh0؊}9}ڔ,UQG敿\TsK2gm}_d`Ax~fL8: יwgPWGYv^ұ٠DlKy6^k@B{ γ^FbPJTÖoV"^IF95 [3of]hY5aIENK~zQT6 '93v5eOuړߺl6!b(y8jz{*!u 0_E𕼼&wU}W+c|=V;Aagox ?ajW̙S)}pYGelmIBlڥ\Qx(Mo-i<(WH=jڸ 3@%'l\y H|_ʶUƛ Qg{;L})W3ˆݎF>5;xo6ȦxE1>Wlv/c{aPA.;ь@>WmYP+yY>;X}ڈ2 :A1|.v҇R2X'+=2&(|RSLnu0Ӈn#D^ϛRN9GY]U"`S$G֥s'^YR',E{73Vd(6hX@UB ':xDWc ̮|c&BL0KӑwH(ʢQL|}='7~T<7o'rl)e;m}V2lC8HO7Mhtt&O>Vyᵌ(NAq[)̩Hg'{on2j,oJD#(b9i9:p^ 27D,IR_*g:.'V/HMƤ C[?gn!l]?Nj_OpeU iJQ{0űsf=wXʪƳa] Lw@"Ζ0^]jE o&vZX.7PɁS_mցq0'D>ϡilN6ff(ضka$./Wzo1vGJ~h6?݊!nŽGKBTYnOC[!: bCɚPaj8rdjۗm'pH/Jj\3]56MCw"ewuMH?P@ZD;\vVkplQ$v?JzntLJ>S'M^Zꁚ+0֭>__K9Lpe%|7><ފt$Q rcKh\57wA%ƗiGg`FӖqemEO{>I}Nfq .a{oEժ8e4₪Үm}ʶd17\vS~:kNۖo4?̄Rl1rWWT ʰ{Sܻ}mRkKYys?HX]`l]IEOFbZ jpk0 Kr<<ɉ/"%@bq|Us=[p5'= *4שe;tyF^Wp<5z͚V[AP.'H冻6ľIg1Ck+}3,;j[5uԪ5·W)싲Qf n;RVWAMl{Ku~l8&{bmPXڝgV`\s̽!]uEYBbXeZBFʦ!!O`~>m&Iօ' K,><-;qsJ#ε >F9(K߻.sCxZX)`np'! q.?>1k`η-+g$%X[lyEUΞx?L9 :Z׍T5ʜ_Ze)C9W/*ѩm"<ߕR>VzfoqRޱqs{WB:Uhose,PN+O,/+(6K+guHn>i]2Xt5= / IqDJ^ ~vќXElc$}[KFK'.NZXbuju,*BZe1܊W:Po%+eĽ9͇ /bTk3|隷] uV OG?0}5
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1