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Overview
A New York Times Notable Book
Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize
In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society.
Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.
Third-place winner of Barnes & Noble's 2001 Discover Great New Writers Award for Nonfiction
Synopsis
In the heart of Chia's Sichuan province lies the small city of Fuling. Surrounded by the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, Fuling has long been a place of continuity, far from the bustling political centers of Beijing and Shanghai. But now Fuling is heading down a new path, and gradually, along with scores of other towns in this vast and ever-evolving country, it is becoming a place of change and vitality, tension and reform, disruption and growth. As the people of Fuling hold on to the China they know, they are also opening up and struggling to adapt to a world in which their fate is uncertain.
Fuling's position at the crossroads came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. He found himself teaching English and American literature at the local college, discovering how Shakespeare and other classics look when seen through the eyes of students who have been raised in the Sichuan countryside and educated in Communist Party doctrine. His students, though, are the ones who taught him about the ways of Fuling — and about the complex process of understanding that takes place when one is immersed in a radically different society.
As he learns the language and comes to know the people, Hessler begins to see that it is indeed a unique moment for Fuling. In its past is Communist China's troubled history — the struggles of land reform, the decades of misguided economic policies, and the unthinkable damage of the Cultural Revolution — and in the future is the Three Gorges Dam, which upon completion will partly floodthe city and force the resettlement of more than a million people. Making his way in the city and traveling by boat and train throughout Sichuan province and beyond, Hessler offers vivid descriptions of the people he meets, from priests to prostitutes and peasants to professors, and gives voice to their views. This is both an intimate personal story of his life in Fuling and a colorful, beautifully written account of the surrounding landscape and its history. Imaginative, poignant, funny, and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that, much like China itself, is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.
New York Times Book Review - Adam Goodheart
River Town is an important work of reportage, and not just because of the peculiar historical moment it describes -- a moment when Hessler's students can speak of their sincere admiration for the Communist ideals of Chairman Mao, then go off after graduation to seek their fortune in the tumultuous prosperity of China's southern cities. It's also a window into a part of China -- the province of Sichuan -- that has rarely been explored in depth, even though, as Hessler notes, it is home to one out of every 50 people on earth.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewWhen President Kennedy conceived of the Peace Corps, he probably didn't imagine that it would give birth to a body of such poignant and powerful travel literature. Peter Hessler's River Town is a delightful addition to the pantheon of Peace Corps literature that recounts the trials and triumphs of "the toughest job you'll ever love."
The erudite Hessler volunteered to teach English literature at a teacher's college in Fuling, China, a small city -- by Chinese standards -- of 250,000 along the Yangtze River. Fuling wasn't renowned for anything in particular, but the city's fate was soon to change as the Chinese government unrolled its highly controversial Three Gorges river dam project. Hessler beautifully depicts the rhythms and sounds of a sleepy city on the cusp of great transition. He alternates descriptions of his daily adventures in Fuling with character studies of its notable, colorful, and sometimes wacky residents. He excels in bringing Fuling to life and sharing with the reader its unique qualities and complexities.
But it's in the classroom that Hessler finds writer's gold. His wry and warm descriptions of his students and their stories are rich and real, and make for excellent reading. The tales include Hessler's role in aiding an individualistic student's quest for government-suppressed information and advising a naïve graduate on the trappings of men and life in the big city. There are also tense sessions with Hessler's fiercely patriotic, party-line-toeing Chinese-language tutor, whose daily debates and language lessons he describes as "opium wars."
By far the most brilliant aspect of River Town is the way in which Hessler uses his students' own words -- from their essays to retellings of the plays they put on in class -- to provide insight into the experiences of a new generation of Chinese people. His students' perspectives on communism, democracy, America, civil liberties, and the great protagonists of English literature are simultaneously earnest and priceless, and Hessler's clever use of them to enrich his own narrative is the mark of a great storyteller.
Hessler also travels extensively throughout some of China's far-flung, lesser-known regions. His encounters on boats and trains provide another look at the issues facing China at the end of the millennium: its struggle for identity, its tense relationship with itself and other countries, and the basic human struggles of its massive population.
While each Peace Corps experience brings with it a host of unique and compelling circumstances, Hessler's two years in Fuling coincided with several especially important moments in modern Chinese history. Among them were the death of Deng Xiaoping and Britain's transfer of Hong Kong back to Chinese control, both in 1997. These events serve as the context within which Hessler explores and explains China. By his own admission, he was only able to scratch the surface of this multifaceted, intricate, and deeply complicated country during his two years of Peace Corps service. But readers doubtless will be moved and enlightened by Hessler's stories of life in China. His thoughtful and well-written account will enrich and educate, as well as incite a yearning within readers for more information about this incredible land. (Emily Burg)
Emily Burg is a New York-based freelancer.
Adam Goodheart
River Town is an important work of reportage, and not just because of the peculiar historical moment it describes -- a moment when Hessler's students can speak of their sincere admiration for the Communist ideals of Chairman Mao, then go off after graduation to seek their fortune in the tumultuous prosperity of China's southern cities. It's also a window into a part of China -- the province of Sichuan -- that has rarely been explored in depth, even though, as Hessler notes, it is home to one out of every 50 people on earth.— New York Times Book Review