{"product_id":"9781429924023","title":"The Noodle Maker: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom Ma Jian, the highly acclaimed Chinese dissident, comes a satirical novel about the absurdities of life in a post-Tiananmen China.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo men meet for dinner each week. Over the course of one of these drunken evenings, the writer recounts the stories he would write, had he the courage: a young man buys an old kiln and opens a private crematorium, delighting in his ability to harass the corpses of police officers and Party secretaries, while swooning to banned Western music; a heartbroken actress performs a public suicide by stepping into the jaws of a wild tiger, watched nonchalantly by her ex-lover. Extraordinary characters inspire him, their lives pulled and pummeled by fate and politics, as if they are balls of dough in the hands of an all-powerful noodle maker.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMa Jian's satirical masterpiece allows us a humorous, yet profound, glimpse of those struggling to survive under a system that dictates their every move.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47174688997616,"sku":"9781429924023","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781429924023_p0.jpg?v=1769901778","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781429924023","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}