Red Dust

The extraordinary personal account of a rebellious young man’s disillusionment with Communism and of his journey around China in search of himself.

In 1983, Ma Jian turned 30 and was overwhelmed by the desire to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. All around him China was changing. Deng Xiaoping was introducing economic reform but clamping down on “Spiritual Pollution”; young people were rebelling. With his long hair and denim jeans, Ma Jian was under surveillance from his work unit and the police. One day he bought a train ticket to the westernmost border of China and set off in search of himself.

Ma Jian’s journey would last three years and take him to deserts and overpopulated cities, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquillity and beauty. The result is an utterly unique book: an insight into the teeming contradictions
of China that only a man who was both an insider and an outsider in his own country could have written.

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