The Dark Road A Novel

From one of world literature’s most courageous voices, a novel about the human cost of China’s one-child policy

Far away from the Chinese economic miracle, from the bright lights of Beijing and Shanghai, is a vast rural hinterland, where life goes on much as it has for generations, with one extraordinary difference: “normal” parents are permitted by the state to have only a single child. Written while Ma Jian traveled the rural backwaters of southwestern China, The Dark Road is the story of one such family, who makes the radical choice to defy the crackdown. A haunting and indelible portrait of the tragedies befalling women and families at the hands of China’s one-child policy and of the human spirit’s capacity to endure even the most brutal cruelty, The Dark Road is also a celebration of life, and of the fierce beauty born of courageous resistance to injustice.

Ma Jian is the author of Stick Out Your Tongue, a collection of short stories that prompted the Chinese government to ban his future work; Red Dust, a travel memoir; and the critically acclaimed novels The Noodle Maker and Beijing Coma. He lives in London, England, with his partner and translator, Flora Drew.