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9781738536269

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The garments on our bodies, the instruments and the gadgets all around us, so much of it comes from China. But who made these commodities, and under what conditions? In Adrift in the South, Xiao Hai offers an unstinting account of his labour, and a youthful life spent on the factory lines of China. But he also shares his loves, especially the love for writing that resulted in this memoir. * Amitava Kumar *

The garments on our bodies, the instruments and the gadgets all around us, so much of it comes from China. But who made these commodities, and under what conditions? In Adrift in the South, Xiao Hai offers an unstinting account of his labour, and a youthful life spent on the factory lines of China. But he also shares his loves, especially the love for writing that resulted in this memoir. * Amitava Kumar * Readers of works such as Leslie T Chang's Factory Girls will be familiar with the intermingled sense of ambition and listlessness among China's manufacturing workers. Xiao Hai's account, in a sparse but effective translation by Tony Hao, stands out for its retrospection . . . an account of the world behind the ""Made in China"" label and a potent reminder of the humans powering the manufacturing boom. * Financial Times * Then, there is the path China did take: the helter skelter modernization of Reform and Opening. Artists and writers - such as the author of this volume, Xiao Hai, born in 1987 - toiled for years on factory floors, creating for China the wealth they fantasized about sharing in. Adrift in the South, a memoir of Xiao Hai's life on and off the assembly line, is a snapshot of that era. -- Alexander Boyd * China Books Review *

Author Information

Xiao Hai was born in Shangqiu City in Henan Province in China. At fifteen he moved to Shenzhen to join the workforce. He spent the next decade moving between cities, working factory jobs and writing poetry. He is the author of the poetry collection Sisyphus on the Wenyu River, and translations of his poetry have appeared in World Literature Today and Chinese Literature Today. Tony Hao is a Connecticut-based Chinese-to-English literary translator and writer. Authors he has translated include Taiwanese novelist Tong Wei-Ger and Chinese short story writer Ban Yu.

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