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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Politics & government

LEFTOVER IN CHINA

Roseann Lake

The Women Shaping the World’s Next Superpower

Factory Girls meets The Vagina Monologues in this fascinating narrative on China’s single women - the source of its future.

Forty years ago in China, marriage was universal, compulsory, and a woman’s only means to livelihood. Enter the one-child policy, which despite its horrors, resulted in China’s first generations of urban only-daughters—girls who were raised without brothers and pushed to study, achieve, and succeed as if they were sons. Fast forward to the present, where in an urbanized economic powerhouse, enough of these women have decided to postpone marriage—or not marry at all—to spawn a label: “leftovers.” Unprecedentedly well-educated and goal-oriented, they struggle to find partners in a society where gender roles have not evolved as vigorously as the society itself. Part critique of China’s paternalistic ideals, part playful portrait of the romantic travails of China’s trailblazing women, Roseann Lake’s The Leftovers employs colorful anecdotes, hundreds of interviews, and rigorous historical and demographic research to show how the “leftovers” are the ultimate linchpin to China’s future. Roseann Lake is a journalist and producer for the Economist. She was a television reporter in China for five years and has written for the Atlantic, Time, Salon, and Foreign Policy, among others. She lives in New York City.

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Book Published 2018-02-13 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

Comments

Based on a five-year stint as a television reporter in China, journalist and producer Lake presents an intimate yet wide-ranging examination of this economic and cultural phenomenon, a book that sparkles with personal revelations as well as important social and cultural details.

What a fascinating book. Roseann Lake captures China's tense sociopolitical climate today, as their ancient, deeply rooted traditions, values and beliefs about sex, romance, and marriage clash with the powerful current trend toward individualism in this dedicated collectivist society. The aftershocks of the 'one-child' policy; Chinese women entering the market in droves; today's antiquated Chinese courtship codes; this book depicts the profound global shift in human family life with elegance, clarity, insight, humor, and verve. It's a great read.

An interesting read for the layperson and a useful book for scholars of everything from gender studies to economics, opening up Chinese culture in a way that is engaging and informational.

...an invigorating account of China's rapidly changing culture, told from the perspective a particularly unique segment of the population.

A revealing look at some of the women who are changing the way China operates. . . . A solid debut book providing intriguing insights into the current state of China's sociocultural system.

Chinese (simpl.): Beijing Standway Books

If you think dating in twenty-first-century America is confusing, read Roseann Lake's fascinating survey of singlehood and marriage in China, where seismic shifts have rendered the social landscape virtually unrecognizable. Packed with lively interviews and fascinating historical details, Leftover in China is vivid, generous, and illuminating.

As a Chinese woman, I can feel and hear Chinese women's minds and voices radiating through Leftover in China. It conveys a powerful message that encapsulates and epitomizes today's rapidly changing China.