Our Story: Pingru and Meitang, Rao Pingru

10 unit(s) of this item on sale from January 8, 2020 at 8 am (only on units sold and shipped by Amazon)

In 2008, upon the death of his wife Meitang, Rao Pingru began to ward off grief with ink and watercolor, retracing, in memoriam and in drawings, the destiny of his family. In his Shanghai apartment, the old man remembers the salt of the days he shared with Meitang and their life punctuated by the throbbing of a China in turmoil.

From his early childhood to his marriage with the one who had "a touch of scarlet" on her lips, from his military engagement in the war against Japan to his internment in a re-education camp where he remained for twenty years, from the establishment of his family in Shanghai to his wife's illness, Rao Pingru recounts in this story both the festive days and the difficult days, delivering a work unlike any other, a life drawn on the scale of China.

On every page of a narrative that is at once tender, serious, and poetic, personal and national history, the unique voice of Rao Pingru and the march of the country's political evolutions converge, offering a powerful testimony to the lives of ordinary heroes in 20th-century China, as well as a magnificent love story.

In turn a soldier, accountant, and editor, RAO Pingru became a painter and writer on the cusp of his nineties. His wisdom, simple yet vivid style, and talent as an illustrator make him an unclassifiable author.

Translated from Chinese by François Dubois