{"id":46440,"date":"2020-01-21T11:12:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T16:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=46440"},"modified":"2020-01-20T09:36:05","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T14:36:05","slug":"stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated by Mike Fu [in Christian Science Monitor]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Stories of the Sahara<\/em> celebrates a singular voice in travel writing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sanmao electrified Chinese readers when her travelogue \u201cStories of the Sahara\u201d was published in 1976 \u2013 now it has been translated into English.<\/em><\/p>\n

She had three names; traveled to more than 55 countries; studied in Germany, the United States, and Spain; spoke multiple languages; and eventually wrote more than 20 titles with 15 million copies sold worldwide. Born Chen Maoping in Chongqing, China, in 1943 and raised predominantly in Taiwan, the peripatetic polyglot was a pioneering global citizen, fueled by her extraordinary curiosity and infectious enthusiasm. She chose Echo as her English name, in homage to her art teacher. To the literary community, she is best known as Sanmao, the pseudonym inspired by a Chinese comic-strip character created in 1935 who remains a beloved icon today; the name means \u201cthree hairs,\u201d noting the extent of the young boy\u2019s poverty-plagued malnutrition. \u201c\u2018When I began to write, I decided to faithfully record the lives of ordinary people whose voices go unheard,\u201d Sanmao said of her choice.<\/p>\n

Those ordinary, unheard voices populate Stories of the Sahara<\/em> marking the beginning of Sanmao\u2019s glorious, prodigious literary career. Initially serialized in the Taiwanese newspaper United Daily News<\/em>, the 20-essay collection was published in Chinese in 1976 to instant success. Stories<\/em> finally makes its English-language debut more than four decades later, made possible by writer-translator Mike Fu, who is also the assistant dean of global initiatives at New York\u2019s Parsons School of Design and co-founder of and editor at The Shanghai Literary Review<\/em>. Singaporean British author Sharlene Teo (who wrote Ponti<\/em>) provides an illuminating foreword that explores Sanmao\u2019s life and writing career, introducing \u201cthe chimerical protagonist-narrator [who] presents herself as trendsetter and rule-breaker, cool girl and mystic, pensive romantic and comic heroine, globetrotter and housewife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanmao\u2019s opening sentence immediately sets an independent, adventurous tone: \u201cWhen I first arrived in the desert, I desperately wanted to be the first female explorer to cross the Sahara.\u201d While she didn\u2019t quite cover all 103,000 square miles of the world\u2019s largest hot desert, she moves in the 1970s to the outskirts of El Aai\u00fan, then the capital of the Spanish Sahara (the former Spanish colony is currently administered by Morocco). She rents a house, lives there with her new Spanish husband Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Quero, and quickly becomes a beloved fixture among her diverse neighbors. She dispenses (with considerable success) medicinal cures although she has no medical training, becomes the de facto<\/em> local source from whom to borrow (permanently, mostly), obtains a driver’s license after evading the local police for months, and spends a few weekends as an unlikely fishmonger (although she and Jos\u00e9 eat up any profits). She creates \u201cthe most beautiful home in the desert,\u201d according to a wandering foreign reporter.<\/p>\n

Irresistibly adept at charming the reader with her stubborn openness, her descriptive details, her self-deprecation, Sanmao is equally affecting in exposing the darker elements of her desert sojourn: The child marriage of her next-door-neighbor\u2019s 10-year-old daughter, complete with her helpless screams on her first night as a wife; the heartless extortion of lonely, naive men by faraway fake wives; the multi-generational buying and selling of enslaved human beings and the anguished misery of their bewildered families; the brutal murders between political factions, and the collateral damage suffered by everyone. Beyond her infectious energy, Sanmao reveals keen insight, astute self-awareness, and the rare glimpses of unsettled loneliness.<\/p>\n

Her desert exploits and explorations come to a sudden end with Jos\u00e9\u2019s death in a 1979 diving accident. Alone, Sanmao returns to Taiwan to be with family, settling by 1981 into a comparatively fixed life of writing (including the screenplay for the award-winning 1990 Taiwanese film Red Dust<\/em>, starring Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung) and teaching. Sadly, she took her own life in 1991 \u2013 at the age of 47.<\/p>\n

Sanmao \u201clives again in new translations of some of her earliest work,\u201d Fu writes in his acknowledgements, referring to his own \u201cbelated translation\u201d as \u201ca labour of love.\u201d He assures us that Sanmao \u201cwould have delighted in the opportunity to befriend even more people across cultures and languages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>: “\u2018Stories of the Sahara\u2019 celebrates a singular voice in travel writing,” Christian Science Monitor<\/em>, January 16, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 1976 (Taiwan), 2020 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stories of the Sahara celebrates a singular voice in travel writing Sanmao electrified Chinese readers when her travelogue \u201cStories of the Sahara\u201d was published in 1976 \u2013 now it has been translated into English. She had three names; traveled to more than 55 countries; studied…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,67,23,107,20,6535,730,66],"tags":[32,6608,8905,148,59,11,149,24,13,8907,8904,8906,173],"class_list":["post-46440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-chinese","category-european","category-memoir","category-nonfiction","category-repost","category-taiwanese","category-translation","tag-adventure","tag-bookdragon","tag-chen-maoping","tag-christian-science-monitor","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-friendship","tag-gender-inequality","tag-historical","tag-love","tag-mike-fu","tag-sanmao","tag-stories-of-the-sahara","tag-travel"],"yoast_head":"\nStories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated by Mike Fu [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated by Mike Fu [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stories of the Sahara celebrates a singular voice in travel writing Sanmao electrified Chinese readers when her travelogue \u201cStories of the Sahara\u201d was published in 1976 \u2013 now it has been translated into English. She had three names; traveled to more than 55 countries; studied...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-01-21T16:12:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-01-20T14:36:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2019\/12\/Stories-of-the-Sahara-Sanmao-BookDragon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"669\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1076\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated by Mike Fu [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated by Mike Fu [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","og_description":"Stories of the Sahara celebrates a singular voice in travel writing Sanmao electrified Chinese readers when her travelogue \u201cStories of the Sahara\u201d was published in 1976 \u2013 now it has been translated into English. She had three names; traveled to more than 55 countries; studied...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2020-01-21T16:12:52+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-01-20T14:36:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":669,"height":1076,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2019\/12\/Stories-of-the-Sahara-Sanmao-BookDragon.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/","name":"Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated by Mike Fu [in Christian Science Monitor] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-01-21T16:12:52+00:00","dateModified":"2020-01-20T14:36:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/stories-of-the-sahara-by-sanmao-translated-by-mike-fu-in-christian-science-monitor\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated by Mike Fu [in Christian Science Monitor]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46442,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46440\/revisions\/46442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}