''Years of Red Dust'' is a collection of

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

Qiu Xiaolong Qiu Xiaolong (, Chinese pronunciation /tɕʰjoʊː ˌɕjɑʊˈlʊŋ/, American English pronunciation ; born Shanghai, China, 1953) is a crime novelist, English-language poet, literary translator, critic, and academic, who has lived for many y ...

. The book in English was published in 2010;http://us.macmillan.com/yearsofreddust/QiuXiaolong (page visited on 4 February 2014). but the stories were originally published in ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'' and a book in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

was published in 2008. It is a story about

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

between 1949 and 2005, told through changes experienced by people living in the Red Dust neighbourhood in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

Plot

Each chapter tells a story from a different year, consisting of two strands, slice-of-life personal histories of ordinary people living in Red Dust Lane, mixed with the ever-changing narrative of China’s socialist history. Most of the stories begin with non-fiction excerpts from

wall newspaper A wall newspaper or placard newspaper is a hand-lettered or printed newspaper designed to be displayed and read in public places both indoors and outdoors, utilizing vertical surfaces such as walls, boards, and fences. The practice dates back to ...

s of China's past. Incidents involve neighbors who are academics, those who own businesses, those who join the military, as well as manual laborers. One chapter includes a fictionalized account, based on a real life event, of preparations for the day U.S. President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

visited Shanghai. The setting is in

where "the flow of the green slime of corruption, pollution and greed (for money), races with the flow of blood and champagne", according to ''

Aftenposten ( in the masthead; ; Norwegian for "The Evening Post") is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen) and estimated 1.2 million ...

''.Bodil Fuhr, "Shanghai. Der beskriver han korrupsjon, forurensning, og pengegriskhet så det grønne slimet renner om kapp med blod og champagne", ''

'', 3 September 2011, page 3.

Sales

The book has been on best-seller lists in France and Germany.Astrid Hygen Meyer, ''

Klassekampen ''Klassekampen'' ( en, The Class Struggle) is a Norwegian daily newspaper. It describes itself as "the newspaper of the Left." The paper's net circulation is 34,000 (2021), and it has around 111,000 daily readers on paper (160,000 on Saturdays). ...

'', 3 September 2011, page 3.

Translations

The book has been translated to other languages, including: * French: ''Cité de la poussière rouge'', translated from English by Fanchita Gonzalez Batlle, éditions Liana Levi, 2008 (). * German: ''Das Tor zur Roten Gasse''. * Norwegian: ''År i rødt støv'' (2011).

Plot

Sales

Translations

References

Further reading