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“An exceptional document, brilliantly presented by journalist Pierre Haski, Ma Yan’s Diary reveals the reality of life in the Chinese countryside today.” – L’Express
Ma Yan is a fourteen year old peasant girl from the remote, poverty stricken province of Ningxia in central China. An enthusiastic student, first in her class, she came home one day to learn from her mother that the family could no longer afford to send her to school. Her brothers would continue their education – it was important that they did. But as a girl, her duty was to put survival first, and she was needed to work the fields. Ma Yan wrote to her mother of her outrage at the unfairness that would rob her of a better future. Moved by her daughter’s despair, her mother sought out the French journalist, Pierre Haski, and entrusted him with Ma Yan’s letter, along with three notebooks containing her daughter’s intimate diary. This is Ma Yan’s diary. In simple, direct language she tells the story of an exceptionally difficult childhood, the suffering of her family, and the sacrifice of her mother who worked herself almost to death so that her three children might have a different future. ‘It is impossible to describe the sensation of hunger’, writes Ma Yan. In order to buy a pen, she deprives herself of bread for fifteen days. ‘Every day I had just two meals of yellow rice. I preferred to suppress hunger in order to save money to be able to buy this pen. I don’t know how much I suffered for this pen, but it gave me a feeling of strength, it made me understand that life is difficult but also happy’. Written in her youthful and spirited voice, it captures the gruesome reality of daily life in a world so far removed from our own. A world where there are no roads, no electricity, where malnutrition is rife, meat is a rarity, and pencils are a luxury. Ma Yan’s innocence, curiosity, and thirst for life make her like any fourteen year-old girl in very many ways. But the hardships she faces, her moments of despair and frustration, her courage and resilience, make her and this testimony truly exceptional.
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19 languages
Bulgaria : Colibri
Canada : HarperCollins
China : Hua Xia
Czech Republic : Vikend
Greece : Psichogios
Holland : Arena
Indonesia : Pustaka Hidayah
Italy : Sperling & Kupfer
Japan : Gentosha
Korea : Sejong Books
Latin America : Maeva
Poland : Albatros
Portugal : Asa
Spain : Maeva
Sweden : Wahlström & Widstrand
Taiwan : Crown
Thailand : Amarin
UK : Little Brown/Virago
US : HarperCollins
Audiovisual rights sold:
Director: Maggie Greenwald, Producer: Philip Lee |
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