"Salt Town" Author: Yi Xiaohe Publisher: Xinxing Publishing House

Editor's Recommendation:

★“Their fate reveals a China that you don’t understand.”

The first masterpiece that deeply describes the life, emotions and fate of Chinese rural women. Sincerely recommended by Luo Xin, Liang Hong, Li Haipeng, Xu Zhiyuan and Yi Xianfeng!

"The richness it contains will make Yanzhen have a place in the history of literature and culture." - Yi Xianfeng

★The well-known media person Yi Xiaohe conducted an immersive investigation for a year, interviewing nearly 100 local residents. Through the stories of 12 women struggling to survive in the world of class, urban and rural areas, and prejudice, she unfolds a real grassroots China around us that you have never known before.

★Yanzhen, a small border town in China's "Rust Belt", is also one of the more than 40,000 Chinese towns that are experiencing the pain of transformation from tradition to modernity. Taking it as a sample, we can get a glimpse of the broader real face of China.

★They, who are not seen or heard, are the epitome of every small town woman and every one of us who has not stepped out.

The youngest girl born in the 2000s who dropped out of school early and is now a big shot in a small town, the strong woman who is financially independent but afraid of divorce, the matchmaker who faces the threat of domestic violence but chooses to remarry, the ninety-year-old woman who has been married four times and now runs a cat shop... We speak the same language and are influenced by the same history. To some extent, they are us.

Their stories are not footnotes to history; they are history itself.

◎ Introduction

This is a book that will shock the reader at every turn.

In the ancient salt industry town in southern Sichuan, women lead a seemingly calm but actually thrilling life. The youngest girl born in the 2000s who dropped out of school early and became a big shot in the town, the strong woman who is financially independent but afraid of divorce, the matchmaker who chooses to remarry despite the threat of domestic violence, and the 90-year-old woman who has been married four times and opened a cat shop, they are still repeating the life cycle of the ancient times in the 21st century, struggling to survive in the gap between marriage and poverty.

There are more than 40,000 towns in China, but only one Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Yi Xiaohe returned to her hometown and chose an ordinary town. She also selected 12 ordinary women here, and continued to explore their understanding of the country, society, family, and marriage, and followed them to experience the "salty" life again. She wanted to know, in such a forgotten town, what kind of life will those unknown women live in the era of transition from the old to the new?

After a year of field research, Yi Xiaohe recorded their lives that were invisible and unheard. In this small town that is frozen in time like salt, we will see a different urban and rural China.

◎ Celebrity recommendation

This is a book about "angry women", just like what John Steinbeck did in the 1930s: touching the depths of life's suffering, with great compassion, love, and anger at injustice and inequality. Through the stories of these women, Yi Xiaohe tells us that lamenting "fate" is superficial, and the direction of women's anger is clear.

Whether it is the exploration of national character or the awareness of gender consciousness, Yi Xiaohe seems to have inherited the tradition of the Republic of China. This book reminds me of Xiao Hong's "The Story of Hulan River", and it shocked me in the same way. The richness it contains will make "Salt Town" have a place in the literary and cultural history.

——Yi Xianfeng, a well-known media person and writer

Salttown is reminiscent of the best female writers in its attention to how women spend long periods of time in difficult situations, and its rich, unhurried texture. It is also a true journalistic work that reminds us of the word "serious," a solid testimony to the systemic plight of women. Its content and quality make us realize not only how sympathetic women are, but also how respectable they are.

——Li Haipeng, a well-known media person

The lives of the twelve women illuminate all the back streets of the town, creating an ode to life that does not bow to fate. Even if Sima Qian were resurrected, he would not necessarily do better than Yi Xiaohe.

—— Luo Xin, professor of history at Peking University

Yi Xiaohe's "Salt Town" reads vividly, realistically, and richly textured. Every person in the town walks out of the simple town with their own unique life breath and destiny experience, presenting the flesh and blood temperament of individuals and merging into the abyss of the spirit of the times. In this sense, the town, every object and every person in the town have a very moving sense of existence and history. Everyone has such a "Salt Town" in their memory.

——Writer Liang Hong

Thanks to Xiao He's keenness and affection, these stories that were always drowned and ignored finally came to our attention. The tragic and happy fate of the ancient town made me feel deeply moved.

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

Reading "Salt Town", you can feel the pain of salt seeping into the wound; although it is about women, it tells the miserable life of the lower class people; the structural dilemma is vaguely visible: the root cause of poverty, illness, violence, cowardice, helplessness, indifference and numbness. It is rare for a media person with compassion to pay so much attention to the living conditions of ordinary people in the lower class.

——Guo Yuhua, Professor of Sociology at Tsinghua University

About the Author

Yi Xiaohe

Senior media person and writer, born in Zigong, Sichuan Province. Founder of the literary public account platforms "Seven Writers" and "Sao Ke Literature and Art", and founder of the historical public account "Search History". Author of "Experience NBA" and "Do We Still Have Souls" etc.

Table of contents:

Preface
Salt
Bounced up, also brushed down
Thunder and lightning flash not far away
Has anyone seen salmon in the Kettle Creek River?
The egret flew away
Go to the other side of the river
Opening is a finger, clenching is a fist
My mother is not here
Add salt
Businessmen
postscript