Encounters with Chinese Writers

It's been a pilgrimage for Annie Dillard: from Tinker Creek to the Galapagos Islands, the high Arctic, the Pacific Northwest, the Amazon Jungle--and now, China. This informative narrative is full of fascinating people: Chinese people, mostly writers, who encounter American writers in various bizarre circumstances in both China and the U.S. There is a toasting scene at a Chinese banquet, a portrait of a bitter, flirtatious diplomat at a dance hall, a formal meeting with Chinese writers, a conversation with an American businessman in a hotel lobby, an evening with long-suffering Chinese intellectuals in their house, a scene in the Beijing foreigners' compound with an excited European journalist, and a scene of unwarranted hilarity at the Beijing Library. In the U.S., there is Allen Ginsberg having a bewildering conversation in Disneyland with a Chinese journalist, there is the lovely and controversial writer Zhang Jie suiting abrupt mood changes to a variety of actions, and there is the fiercely spirited Jiange Zilong singing in a Connecticut dining room, eyes closed. These are real stories told with a warm and lively humor, with a keen eye for paradox, and with fresh insight into the human drama.