Beijing Coma
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Dai Wei is a medical student and a pro-democracy protestor in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Caught by a soldier’s bullet, he falls into a deep coma; as soon as the hospital authorities discover he is an activist, his mother is forced to take him home. She allows pharmacists access to Dai Wei’s body and sells his urine and his left kidney to fund special treatment from Master Yao, a member of the outlawed Falun Gong sect. But during a government crackdown, the Master is arrested and Dai Wei’s mother – who has fallen in love with him – loses her mind.
The millennium draws near and Dai Wei has been in a coma for almost a decade. A sparrow flies through the window and lands on his naked chest; it is a sign that Dai Wei must emerge from his dry cocoon. But China has also undergone a massive transformation in the time that he has been absent. As he prepares to take leave of his old metal bed, Dai Wei realises that the rich imaginative world afforded to him as a coma patient is a startling contrast with the death-in-life of the world outside.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Flora
Drew
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
A powerful depiction of modern China centred on the student protest in Tiananmen Square.
Being as striking as the bullets at Tiananmen Square, the novel, with its wit and uncompromising tone depicts how a system devours individuals, puts them into a coma by depriving them of the beauty of life and freedom. It’s a voice that cannot be suppressed and that will surely wake the world up.
Looking at China via the life of a dissident paralyzed at Tiananmen Square, this novel is an important political statement.