In addition to the beautiful humans, classical music acts as a character in Do Not Say We Have Nothing, often helping to communicate the range of emotions forbidden to good comrades as passion unbefitting a Party member. There’s Sparrow, the brooding composer, Zhuli the violin prodigy, Jiang Kai the orphan piano virtuoso, brash and beautifully refreshing Big Mother Knife, ethereal Wen the Dreamer, and the endearing Ba Lute, just to name a few. If you’re lucky and you survive your denunciation (known as a struggle session) you get sent to the far reaches of the country to endure famine and forced labor as you reform your bourgeois ways in a re-education camp.ĭeep, wonderfully human characters populate this incredible novel. If you’re denounced as a demon capitalist for possessing counter-revolutionary propaganda (anything other than the writings of the great helmsman, Chairman Mao), you could be beaten or killed in front of your family and community as a human lesson to your comrades about the importance of Party loyalty above all else.

They provide permission to marry and assign your vocation and housing. In Communist China, the government controls everything. “It is one thing to suffer, it is another thing to be forgotten.”Ĭhina’s Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre form the backdrop for Madeleine Thien’s brilliant and moving novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, longlisted* for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and the 2016 Giller Prize. –Quotation on the back of Sparrow’s composition for piano and violin, The Sun Shines on the People’s Square. Throughout history there have been many moments that can never be recovered, but you and I know that they existed.” Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeannette Winterson.Join 1,994 other subscribers Recent Posts

Do not say we have nothing