Narrative
Stick Out Your Tongue
亮出你的舌苔或空空蕩蕩
Ma Jian · 1987
Synopsis
Five stories born of a journey to Tibet in 1985. Near Lake Yamdrok, the narrator obtains from a young Chinese soldier permission to attend a sky burial; elsewhere, he meets an old nomad on a pilgrimage to wash away his sins. One story follows a fifteen-year-old girl, recognised as the reincarnation of a living Buddha, as she approaches an initiation in a frozen river; another, a young man who sets out to find his nomad family in the pastures after years of study.
Context
Written after the 1985 journey, the stories appeared in 1987 in the journal Renmin wenxue according to Kirkus Reviews; the print run was seized and the text banned, the authorities seeing in it, according to the Smithsonian, a vulgar and obscene book that tarnished the image of Tibetan compatriots. They form the counterpart of a travel narrative by the author. Isabelle Bijon translated them into French for Actes Sud as early as 1988, under the title La Mendiante de Shigatze, and Flora Drew into English in 2006, under the title Stick Out Your Tongue.
Who it is for
Five short and often violent stories; they can be read in French from Actes Sud and in English from Penguin.
Prizes and reception
According to BookBrowse, the ban subsequently extended to all of its author's work in China.
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