The Lily Theater: A Novel [Paperback]

A strikingly original debut novel—and an international literary sensation—based on the author's experience growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution. • An original writer of real talent.  —The New York Times Book Review

When twelve-year-old Lian Shui accompanies her mother to reeducation camp, no one imagines that Lian will receive an education. But detained along with her mother are some of China's greatest thinkers and they take an interest in young Lian. She in turn delivers lectures of her own to the creatures inhabiting a pond she dubs The Lily Theater. These ideas inform her life when she returns to school and reunites with her best friend Kim, a peasant girl through whom Lian ultimately learns about the painful failings of Mao's teachings-and of life. Wang is an original, a writer of real talent.... The Lily Theater evokes its world with abundant and clear-eyed sympathy.
—The New York Times Book Review

[I]n the wonderful tradition of The Secret Garden. Readers will laugh and cry in the magical world of her creation.
—Da Chen, author of Colors of the Mountain
LULU WANG was born in Beijing in 1960. She lives in The Hague, Netherlands.MAMA'S JEST

Trees were in full bloom, birds were busy courting, and the funny blotches were spreading all up and down my arms. I got up and rubbed the affected areas with the sticky, smelly brown ointment, just as I did every day. I felt lonesome and sad. Never again would I have clean sheets and clean underwear like other children--the ointment made everything filthy.

That morning, at the start of her weekend home leave, Mother took a bath, then put on her best clothes, the ones she used to wear beflÓC