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an earlier novel of mine - a novella about Hong Kong. So officially, 'The Fat Years' was not published in China." In the same article, Koonchung goes on to explain that the book has been written about in the mainland press, and that digital copies were disseminated 'on the
Internet within the Chinese firewall' before being deleted. Koonchung does not speculate who specifically deleted his novel, but the title of the article ('Chinese Author: My Book Was Banned in My Home Country') strongly implicates the Chinese authorities.
567:, under the title 'The Fat Years', with a blurb on the cover describing the novel as 'The Notorious Novel No One in China Dares to Publish'. This blurb was later changed to a more direct description 'The Notorious Thriller They Banned In China' in the January 2012 ebook version of the novel by the same publisher. Another ebook version of the novel also published in the same month by the Doubleday imprint
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member named He
Dongsheng). Lao gradually finds himself pulled into events by his old friend Fang Caodi, who is frantically searching for the missing month of February 2011 (with official records and public memory jumping from January to March), and his former flame Wei Xihong (known as "Little Xi"),
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the author explained that "when my novel, 'The Fat Years,' was published in
Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2009, some publishers in the mainland China approached me. I told them to read the novel first and then we would talk. None of them came back. Well, one did come back, but for the rights to
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After another film screening at Jian's restaurant, Lao is inadvertently pulled into a kidnapping of He
Dongsheng by Fang, Wei, and Zhang Dou (an aspiring guitarist who also recalls February 2011), who are determined to understand the meaning of the missing month. After Dongsheng and the others agree
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to enact his "Action Plan for Ruling the Nation and
Pacifying the World." For one week, all government services and forces were forbidden to intervene without express permission, with widespread upheaval and rumor mongering only ending with the reentry of the
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father having fled to Taiwan and his Taoist mother dying in prison. After suffering for his family's reputation under the
Cultural Revolution, he was allowed to travel to the United States as relations with China thawed. He lived for a time in a New Mexico
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uses the a blurb similar to the original, describing it as 'The Book No One in China Dares to
Publish', while a print version by the same imprint replaces the blurb with a quote from the New York Times review of the novel.
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Chinese-language newspaper, he returns to work as a reporter in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He becomes an author of some notability, though he finds himself unable by the time of the novel to make progress on his
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Lao's feelings of contentment begin to vanish as he listens to Wei and Fang's partial recollections of
February 2011 and discovers that any available literature about the
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Dongsheng further explains that the
Chinese government was able to save their economy with intrusive measures such as the conversion of large percentages of
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The novel is set in the near future of 2013, where China has entered a "Golden Age of
Ascendancy," while Western nations have stagnated after a second
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The first editions of the novel were published by Oxford University Press (Hong Kong, 2009) and by the Rye Field Publishing Company (Taiwan, 2009).
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and aspiring guitarist. He is also aware of the month of February 2011 and the unusual behavior of people in the "Golden Age of Ascendancy."
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and armed police. The restoration of order and ensuing crackdown helped cement the necessity of the Communist Party in the public mind.
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under the title 'Prosperous Age: China in the year 2013' (盛世—中國2013年), to date it has never been published in mainland China.
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Also known by his pen name "Fang Caodi", he is a longtime friend of Lao Chan. He was born in 1947 in Beijing and raised in a
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into the public's drinking water and bottled drinks and that the missing month of February 2011 is simply a case of
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negotiate with the local government. After Lao confesses his love to Wei, they return to Beijing.
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resident. After studying in a Jamaican Catholic university and working in a
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in early 2011. Lao Chen, a Hong Kong expatriate and writer living in
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legitimacy and authority, the decision was made in the midst of the
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After unsuccessfully arguing with Dongsheng over the benefits of
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and finally moving back to mainland China to travel through the
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335:World War II America
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725:Fiction set in 2013
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517:Publication History
510:child slave laborer
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407:magnum opus
351:Middle East
150:盛世 中国 2013年
136:盛世 中國 2013年
48:盛世 中國 2013年
699:Categories
648:2023-04-24
602:References
585:, finalist
559:under the
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448:East Coast
388:Characters
365:is a new "
315:corruption
201:is a 2009
56:Translator
561:Doubleday
508:A former
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398:Taiwanese
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367:first use
250:a former
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101:Hong Kong
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402:New York
363:hegemony
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239:Beijing
221:by the
67:Chinese
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