dust

I have seen too many misfortunes, and I have never been depressed.

——Chen Nianxi

This book is a collection of 21 non-fiction stories by Chen Nianxi.

The book tells the stories of a group of ordinary and simple laborers.

They are demolition workers, stone transporters, rural carpenters, farmers, peasant women, small workshop owners...

And the writer's own story runs through it all: digging mountains and blasting rocks five thousand meters underground, supporting his family in the smoke and roar, writing poems in workshops and mountains, recording the bursting and silence of fate.

Although they have experienced the tempering of life, they are simple and tough, and quietly tell the life themes about family affection, love, death, and desire...

This is a book of life, a book of death, and in the final analysis, a book of life.

What is the world like? What is life like? In my feeling, except for the lingering, ubiquitous wind, the rest is dust. We rush in it, trying to stand firm, but most of the time we are staggering and involuntary.