Broken Wings
Translated by Nicky Harman
About
Butterfly is kidnapped and sold to a farmer in a remote mountain village where young women have become scarce. Imprisoned in a cave home, she endures rape and captivity while her hopes of escape slowly fade. The novel gives Butterfly her own voice — not a victim's testimony but a consciousness trying to survive inside an impossible situation. Jia Pingwa based this novel on real stories of trafficking in rural China, and his refusal to look away from the brutality is matched by his refusal to reduce Butterfly to her suffering. She thinks, remembers, and resists in ways that are painfully human. A harrowing novel about what happens to women in the gaps where modernity hasn't reached — and about the voice that persists even when no one is listening.
