Longevity Park

Translated from the Chinese by James Trapp

2022 Longlist

The elderly citizens of Beijing have gathered in Longevity Park to hear promises of good health. Care robots, immortality pills, de-ageing technology…a cynic might just call it all snake oil. Yet one speaker offers up no easy answers. She is Nurse Zhong, and all she has is the story of Uncle Xiao, the old man she cared for. What follows is an inescapably human tale of how two fragile human beings –one young, one infirm – weathered all life’s hardships and sunsets: together. China is ageing, and its families are increasingly fragmented. In Longevity Park, Zhou Daxin gets to grips with the human side of this problem, addressing questions of dignity, legacy and longing for connection.

About the Author/Translator

Zhou Daxin is a contemporary Chinese author who, across his body of work of more than thirty novels and short stories, has made piercing observations of Chinese society by setting his characters in rural, urban and even allegorical environments and touching upon challenging, often intimate humanitarian questions seldom dealt with by other authors of his generation.

James Trapp is a freelance Chinese literary translator and cultural education consultant. James has an honours degree in Chinese from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Librarian’s Comments

China is ageing. Its shrinking households, overworked and overstretched, struggle to carry the burden of care for their elderly. Retired Beijing judge Uncle Xiao is one among millions of old\-timers who face a hopeless choice: accept a lonely decline, or chase dubious miracle cures. Then into his life steps Miss Zhong, a young rural nurse with her own share of problems. The two have little in common, but as time delivers tragedies they learn that family can take many forms. Will this unlikely pair weather lifes storms together, and will Xiao find warmth in his sunset years?” Jinling Library, China