平原

In 1976, Duanfang finishes secondary school and returns to Wang Village on the plain of northern Jiangsu, where the wheat harvest drives his body to its limits. He lives in a patched-together household with his mother, Shen Cuizhen, and his stepfather, Wang Cunliang, and has to win his own place in it. Restless and strong, he falls in love with Sanya, the daughter of a landlord family, but village gossip soon turns against the couple. Wu Manling, a sent-down youth from Nanjing who has become the village Party secretary and lives almost entirely for politics, finds feelings she had long buried awakening for him. Duanfang, closed to love by now, sees in her power a way to join the army and leave the village. The novel sets the lives of city youths sent to the countryside beside those of young people who came home to farm.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Love, Coming of age (assigned by AI)

Set in

China

First published

2005 by Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House

Author's age

41 when first published