The Red Tiles: Tales from China
Author: Cao Wenxuan
Translated by Huaicun Zhang
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-84464-597-8
£17.75 €19.95 $22.95
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-84464-599-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-84464-598-5
Paperback and ebook £14.95 €16.95 $18.95
Hardback-168 Pages
Age group: 7-13
September 2020
English
Description:
Cao Wenxuan, A literature professor at Peking University, is the first Chinese author to win the Hans Christian Anderson award for children's literature. Cao's best-known children's books include Bronze and Sunflower, Straw House, and The Eyes of Dragonfly. His works are recommended in Chinese schools for the use of language. His novels have been translated into English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Korean. Although Cao has tried many themes, morality, the appreciation of beauty and compassion have remained the three main areas of his writing. The Red Tiles is a collection of Cao’s latest short stories. In these stories, he writes beautifully about the complex lives of children facing great challenges. It shows that children's perspectives are not shallow, and that they experience the same cruelty, fear and depth of life as adults. Cao’s own childhood was filled with miseries and memories of hunger, so he hopes to provide young readers with an understanding of how to treat miseries. His signature language is peaceful, melancholy and beautiful.
Content:
The Story of Herding the Ducks A Revolt of The Dolls The Ships on the Sea Rosewood-coloured Skin The Disgusting Dwarf The Field of Wormwoods The Red Tiles The White-bearded Old Man
About the Author
Cao Wenxuan, the Hans Christian Andersen Award Winner in 2016, was born in January 1954 in the rural area of Yancheng, where he lived until the age of 20. He went to study at Peking University and is now a professor and Ph.D. supervisor of Chinese literature there. He is a member of the Chinese Writers Association, and the deputy president of Beijing Writers Association.
His main works include House with Thatched Roof, Bronze and Sunflower, Honor of Life, Red Tile and Black Tile, Genniao, and The Boy of Ximi. Picture books include Flight Bird’s Nest, Feather, An Umbrella over Berlin, etc. His academic works include A Study of China’s Literature Trends in the 1980s, The Second World – A Philosophical Interpretation of Literature and Art, Research on Chinese Literature Tendencies in the 1990s, and A Novel Door.
Many of his novels and short stories have been translated and published in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and other languages. His books have won more than 40 national and international awards.
About the Translator
Huaicun Zhang is Tu Ethnic Minority, British Chinese. She is a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association and the Royal Society of British Artists. She has held art exhibitions in Hong Kong, Macau, Seoul, Tokyo, New York City, Paris.
Publications include: Pencil Tree, One Snowflake, The Oasis in My Heart, The Red House, On the Train of Autumn, Space of Freedom, Huaicun and Her Friends, Listening to the Flower Bloom, Huaicun’s Chinese Painting and Calligraphy.
Huaicun has translated The Sun on the Tree, My Name is Bob, BBC Nation’s Favourite Poetry about Childhood and other English illustrated books and poetry selections. Her most recent books include: On the Train of Autumn and The Habitat for Fairy Tales.