In the provincial town of Muddy Waters in China, a young woman named Gu Shan is sentenced to death for her loss of faith in Communism. She is twenty-eight years old and has already spent ten years in prison. The citizens stage a protest after her death and, over the following six weeks, the town goes through uncertainty, hope, and fear until eventually the rebellion is brutally suppressed.
Sumei, a mother of a young child, is sentenced to death as an anti-Communist activist. They are all taken on a painful journey; from one young woman's death to another.
We follow the pain of Gu Shan's parents, the hope and fear of the leaders of the protest and their families. Even those who seem ... more

Originally published in 1987, two years before the Tiananmen Square protests, The Ancient Ship immediately caused a sensation in China. Wei's award-winning first novel is the story of three generations of the Sui, Zhao, and Li families living in the fictional northern town of Wali during the troubled years of China's post-liberation. Wei vividly depicts the changes in Wali, where most people have made their livelihood by simply cooking and selling noodles. Once the home to large sailing ships that travelled along the Luqing River, Wali is now left with an unearthed hull of an ancient wooden ship. The ship stands as a metaphor for China, mirrored in the lives of the townspeople, who in the course of the narrative face such defining moments in history as the Land ... more

So begins her unforgettable journey of love, desire, sorrow and redemption.