{"product_id":"9780982015179","title":"The Visiting Suit: Stories From My Prison Life","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"A masterful storyteller.\"—\u003ci\u003eBookforum\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Xiaoda Xiao has made a stark and unforgettable contribution to the literature of imprisonment and survival.\"—Scott Spencer\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"When it comes to prison literature, China remains a great enigma. Whereas the Soviet Union gave us Alexander Solzhenitsyn, China has, of yet, produced no such comparable international voice in the modern age. Xiaoda Xiao's \u003ci\u003eThe Cave Man\u003c\/i\u003e is . . . a small start . . . a compelling look at Mao's forced labor prisons.\"—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Xiaoda Xiao was twenty years old, he tore a poster of Chairman Mao while inebriated. Several months later, Xiao was arrested in order to fulfill an absurd quota and, without trial, declared a counterrevolutionary. He was sent to a labor prison on an island in Taihu Lake, where he worked in a stone quarry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Visiting Suit\u003c\/i\u003e chronicles Xiao's arrest through his release from the labor prison five years later.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book, told in stories—which have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eDoubleTake\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eConfrontation\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAntaeus\u003c\/i\u003e—focus equally on Xiao's fellow inmates (a local theater director, a veterinarian, a university professor), and capture their mutual everyday struggle to survive their sentences with dignity intact.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe cruelties inflicted upon the Chinese population by the government are ongoing, and \u003ci\u003eThe Visiting Suit\u003c\/i\u003e provides a unique and important glimpse behind the curtain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eXiaoda Xiao\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Cave Man\u003c\/i\u003e, a novel.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Two Dollar Radio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47019277680880,"sku":"9780982015179","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780982015179_p0.jpg?v=1763882672","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780982015179","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}