I had a dream in Chinese

🏆 Douban's 2024 Book of the Year 🥇 Douban's 2024 Foreign Literature (Non-Fiction) Top 1
🏆 Southern Metropolis Daily's Top Ten Books of 2024✨An Italian's six-year journey through China, written in Chinese. This may be the most interesting Chinese book you've read this year🌍
"Alex's writing brings a whole new reading experience and breaks down certain barriers in his storytelling, which is itself a linguistic miracle." —Chen Ying, a translator of Italian literature. Learned Chinese from watching "Ode to Joy" and starred as extra No. 46 in a war film. Keeps a diary on Douban and founded a Chinese writing club in Shanghai. Uses baijiu as heating in rural Sichuan, bridging the cold winter and the barriers of dialect. From 2016 to 2022, this is six years through the eyes of Italians, a period of division, absurdity, hope, and fleeting happiness. It's also six years we share.
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I moved from Rome to Beijing, learning Chinese from scratch and becoming a student all over again. Sometimes I was unemployed, sometimes I had no place to live, and I was constantly on the move.
At the Beijing Film Academy, I learned how to cut vegetables from the dormitory manager; I made friends through liquor and translation software, and recorded podcasts in poor Mandarin; on the crew of a domestic film, I witnessed the fierce competition between foreign extras for a line; when shooting a commercial in Guangzhou, I had morning tea before work and drank until I blacked out when wrapping; in Shanghai, I used the living room as a writing salon to create a temporary home; trapped in Hainan in the summer, I watched the clouds with Douban netizens I met by chance.
I wrote this book to tell my story, or rather, to understand how I've lived these past few years. This isn't a political science essay or a sociological survey; it's about my life and the complex dynamics of my relationship with this land.
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The winning entry in The Paper's Sixth Tone Nonfiction Writing Competition tells the story of a young Italian man attempting to integrate into Chinese society. He quickly learned Chinese and wrote in Chinese about his six years of living there. Alejandro's writing offers a fresh reading experience and breaks down a certain isolation in his narrative. This is a linguistic miracle in itself, a courageous attempt to abandon his mother tongue and fully embrace the Chinese language. Faced with the harsh realities that no one has been able to avoid in recent years, the situation for an "outsider" is even more complex, often pushing one's limits. However, Alejandro addresses this challenge of "living elsewhere" with humor and tolerance. This is the life experience of a global citizen, a slice of China through the eyes of a social observer, and a vibrant young man's journal documenting the connections between people. —Chen Ying, translator of Italian literature. Alejandro's dark humor is always hilarious, while his outsider perspective is calming. While local authors struggle to write due to intense pain and the pressure of a sense of mission, Alejandro steadily records his work with meticulous detail, vividness, irony, and even a touch of humor. It's a blessing to encounter such an author. —Auntie Xiong, media professional, you probably rarely see a foreigner writing in Chinese so fluently and immersively. Those profound details and stories make you smile. He cares more about real people—the hotel receptionist, the cafeteria guy wanting to visit Shanxi, the maintenance worker's wish for an apple. They are no longer just "functional" characters; they come alive under the pen of an Italian author. —Polar Day Studio's best recent reading experience in the simplified Chinese language world comes from an Italian. He often uses common vocabulary and sentence structures to create a quirky sense of humor. Alex's writing isn't about deliberately searching for a storyline, but rather about the current atmosphere. Chinese isn't just a subject for his observation; it's a tool for his self-expression. The material Alex records is personal, but his emotions and perspective are public. —NOWNESS Alex is now learning Chinese from scratch and is also viewing and documenting life in China from a new perspective. He watches "Ode to Joy," drinks baijiu with Chinese friends, and encounters the challenges of registering accommodation for foreigners. He was an extra in a mainstream movie and met Mason, an American extra who wanted to win an Oscar. He still sought connections between people during isolation, and set up a writing club in Shanghai. During the lockdown, he helped each other with friends and occasionally discussed the issue of "whether it is profitable or not". Many readers saw their own lives in Alex's story. - Positive connection During the six years he lived in China, he studied film, worked as an extra, and shot commercials. During the lockdown at school in 2020, he wrote on Douban about his daily interactions with the dormitory cleaning lady, the maintenance uncle, and the canteen boy. It felt like everyone had shed their original identities and were just human beings trying to survive. In the loneliest times, words were like a rope to the outside world, connecting Alex and the people who read his words. - A Xi Alex's writing is like a very deep and quiet lake, which can make people fascinated without any waves or ripples. - Bang Bang, Douban reader

2024-07-01

文汇出版社

New Classic Culture

288

9787549642632