From the daring imagination of one of China’s greatest living novelists comes a work of startling power and originality–the story of a young man “displaced” to a small village in rural China during the 1960s. Told in the format of a dictionary, with a series of vignettes disguised as entries, A Dictionary of Maqiao is a novel of bold invention–and a fascinating, comic, deeply moving journey through the dark heart of the Cultural Revolution.

Entries trace the wisdom and absurdities of Maqiao: the petty squabbles, family grudges, poverty, infidelities, fantasies, lunatics, bullies, superstitions, and especially the odd logic in their use of language–where the word for “beginning” is the same as the word for “end”; “little big brother” means older sister; to be “scientific” means to be lazy; and “streetsickness” is a disease afflicting villagers visiting urban areas. Filled with colorful characters–from a weeping ox to a man so poisonous that snakes die when they bite him– A Dictionary of Maqiao is both an important work of Chinese literature and a probing inquiry into the extraordinary power of language.

韩少功，1953年1月出生于湖南省，汉族，现居海南。1968年初中毕业后赴湖南省汨罗县插队务农；1974年调该县文化馆工作；1978年就读湖南师范大学中文系；1982年后任湖南省《主人翁》杂志编辑、副主编；1985年进修于武汉大学英文系，随后任湖南省作家协会专业作家；1988年迁调海南省，历任《海南纪实》杂志主编（1988）、《天涯》杂志社长（1995）、海南省作协主席（1996）、海南省文联主席（2000）等职。当选为中国作家协会全委委员、主席团委员（1997，2001），中国文联全委委员（2001）。

曾在青年部门（1985）、林业部门（1986）以及大学（1995）兼职，曾社会兼任省政协委员、常委（1983、1989、1993）和省人大代表（2003）等职。