''Beijing Coma'' is a 2008 novel by
Ma Jian. It was translated from Chinese by Flora Drew.
The Chinese government has since banned the book. Ma has stated that he wrote the book "to reclaim history from a totalitarian government whose role is to erase it" and named the novel ''Beijing Coma'' in reference to this. ''Beijing Coma'' was listed as one of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' "100 Notable Books of 2008".
Synopsis
The book follows the character of Dai Wei, a man who awakens from a coma to discover that ten years have passed since he was shot in
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square (; 天安门广场; Pinyin: ''Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng''; Wade–Giles: ''Tʻien1-an1-mên2 Kuang3-chʻang3'') is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananmen (" ...
on June 4, 1989. The book's narrative switches between Dai Wei's time as a seemingly non-responsive coma patient to his life before his shooting.
Reception
Critical reception for the book was positive, with
Tash Aw
Tash Aw, whose full name is Aw Ta-Shi (; born 4 October 1971) is a Malaysian writer living in London.
Biography
Born in 1971 in Taipei, Taiwan, to Malaysian parents, Tash Aw returned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at the age of two, and grew up t ...
calling it "a landmark".
Pankaj Mishra
Pankaj Mishra FRSL (born 1969) is an Indian essayist and novelist. He was awarded the Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction in 2014.
Early life and education
Mishra was born in Jhansi, India. His father was a railway worker and trade unioni ...
compared ''Beijing Coma'' with the work of writers such as
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera (, ; born 1 April 1929) is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera's Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, then conferred again in 2019. He "sees himself ...
,
Josef Škvorecký
Josef Škvorecký (; September 27, 1924 – January 3, 2012) was a Czech-Canadian writer and publisher. He spent half of his life in Canada, publishing and supporting banned Czech literature during the communist era. Škvorecký was awarded the ...
and
Ivan Klíma
Ivan Klíma (born 14 September 1931 in Prague, as Ivan Kauders) is a Czech novelist and playwright. He has received the Magnesia Litera award and the Franz Kafka Prize, among other honors.[Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998.
Early life ...]
praised the novel's translation while stating that the book "is desperately in need of editing".
Controversy
In April 2012 Ma protested the choice of China as the guest of honor at the
London Book Fair
The London Book Fair (LBF) is a large book-publishing trade fair held annually, usually in April, in London, England. LBF is a global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and di ...
. Ma used red paint to smear a cross over his face and attempted to present a copy of ''Beijing Coma'' to
Liu Binjie
Liu Binjie (; born September 1948) is a Chinese politician. He currently serves as the Chair of the Education, Science, Culture and Public Health Committee of the National People's Congress. He was most well-known for serving as the director of t ...
, but was stopped by security. Ma called his Chinese publisher a "mouthpiece of the Chinese communist party" and claimed that he had been manhandled while trying to give Liu his book.
References
{{reflist, 2
External links
Official Publisher site
2008 Chinese novels
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
Novels set in China
Book censorship in China
Censored books