The Lost Satellite Author: Liu Zichao Publisher: Wenhui Publishing House

Introduction · · · · · ·
Liu Zichao's first work "Arriving Before Midnight" is reprinted👇

https://book.douban.com/subject/35522033/

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☆ Douban Annual Ranking·No.1 in Chinese Literature Non-fiction

☆ Fangsuo Culture Annual Book Selection

☆ Sina Reading's annual recommended books

☆ Sohu Culture's Top Ten Books of the Year

☆ Southern Metropolis Daily's Top Ten Books

☆ "New Weekly" Hardcore Reading Club's Top Ten Non-Fiction Books

☆ 25 kinds of literary books that you can't miss from "China Reading Newspaper"

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We are born free, but often we are not free.

In an age of isolation and closure, listen to the echoes of a wandering world.

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☆ Go deep into the Central Asian continent and visit the mysterious neighboring country. Writer Liu Zichao has been searching for nine years.

☆ Explore unknown places, witness the journey of time, record individual voices, and find the forgotten lost hearts

☆ Historian Luo Xin and writer Xu Zhiyuan highly praised it, saying it "sets a benchmark for future travel writing"

☆ Won the "True Story Award" for special attention for its in-depth writing about a corner of the world

☆ Recommended by Jon Lee Anderson, a reporter from The New Yorker: A work full of humor, curiosity and adventurous spirit

☆ Selected for the One-Way Street Sailor Program, starting a "new nomadic" lifestyle, going against the tide in an era of closure and isolation

☆ The book comes with a hand-drawn map and 40 photographic illustrations. The author shares a list of Central Asian literature and art for the first time, allowing you to travel through Central Asia on paper.

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With Liu Zichao's book, we can proudly say that among the dazzling array of Central Asian travel literature in modern times, there is finally the first high-quality original Chinese work. ——Luo Xin, Professor of History Department, Peking University

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Over the past nine years, writer Liu Zichao has traveled deep into the heart of Asia several times, to mysterious neighboring countries - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan - embarking on a journey of discovery between the past and the future in this land on the edge of globalization and between the cracks of great powers.

Speeding along the border, bypassing scattered enclaves, galloping in the Pamir no-man's land, and anchoring at the Soviet Union's nuclear test site, he witnessed the isolated place with the spirit of an explorer; embarking on the Golden Road of Samarkand, wandering through bloody battlefields and imperial palaces, gazing at the oldest holy books, touching the pagodas described by Xuanzang, he tried to find the gaze of the ancients; he got to know the Tajik youth who pinned his future on the Chinese language, met the Chinese who had been trapped in the Aral Sea for seven years, and in an Uzbek bar, heard the drunken merchants pointing at the banknotes thrown into the air and shouting: "What you saw before were all illusions, this is reality!" Along the way, he met all kinds of people, wandering between hope and frustration, freedom and loss.

Everything is like a satellite that has left its orbit, ambiguous and lost, full of vitality, loneliness and struggle. We are right next door, but we are unaware of it - until the journey begins, until we open this book.

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With Liu Zichao's book, we can proudly say that among the dazzling array of Central Asian travel literature in modern times, there is finally the first high-quality original Chinese work. The broad coverage, vivid sense of the times, historical thinking with considerable time depth, and calm narration with a sense of stage have set a benchmark for future travel writing in almost every aspect.

——Luo Xin, Professor of History, Peking University

Zichao is the most outstanding travel writer of this generation. His narration and feelings often remind me of Paul Theroux. Sometimes, I wish he was wilder and more passionate.

——Xu Zhiyuan, writer and founder of One Way Space

Liu Zichao's writing is a delight to read, with his terse prose style, unique sense of humor, curiosity, and adventurous spirit. In this book, he takes us to the heart of Central Asia, a place that is both mysterious and unexpectedly closely connected to us. Liu Zichao is a keen observer of human nature and a gifted writer.

—Jon Lee Anderson, senior reporter at The New Yorker

The Lost Satellite is much more than a travel story. It is a rare and extraordinary work of literature that wanders through Central Asia at a very slow pace, like a Buddhist monk—a slow pace that, incidentally, is reflected in the book’s unhurried language. Unlike most travel writers, Liu Zichao does not try to talk to “important people” or pretend to know everything about the land. Instead, he talks to the men and women he meets on the road, asking seemingly simple questions that yield extraordinary answers. All of this gives his work an unsurpassed sincerity. After reading this book, you will feel like you have actually traveled to Central Asia with Zichao, and you will know more about the land than you would from reading a hundred political articles.

—Margrit Sprecher, 2019 Jury Chair of the Global True Story Awards