Books

Serve the People: an excerpt

The ESWN blog has translated Chapter 6 of the banned novella, Serve the People. Here is an excerpt:

Everything was heaven sent.  The heavens had arranged them to lock themselves inside No. 1 court and they could do whatever they want without any clothes on.  They did not waste the opportunity.  For three days and three nights, they were stark naked and they did not go outdoors.  When they were hungry, they ate; when they were tired, they slept; when they woke up, they made love.

Read the whole Chapter 6 of Serve the People in English on ESWN, where you can also find links to Chinese language versions of the story.

UPDATE: From Brendan O'Kane:
Throughout the Chinese text, the phrase 'Chairman Mao' is used, even in lines like "At this she sat up from the bed, casting her eyes over toward the portrait of Chairman Mao pasted to the wall. She went over and tore it down in one ferocious stroke, crumpling it into a ball, then tearing it into pieces, throwing it on the floor, and grinding it with her feet. --Believe me now?"

The characters for 'Chairman Mao' (毛主席) appear more than 20 times throughout the story. The name 'Mao Zedong,' however, does not appear. The characters are replaced by asterisks each time the name would occur - seven instances in all. It's completely obvious from context, though, e.g. "...a red-covered book, " (...红皮书《***选集》).

It would be interesting to see whether the author did this in the original, or whether the website hosting the story is trying to avoid a keyword block by the Nanny.

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