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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
Chamorro

STORIES OF THE SAHARA

Sanmao

A Story Collection by Sanmao

"Sanmao traveled the globe and wrote of her adventures, inspiring generations of women to see the world beyond their own homes" THE NEW YORK TIMES
When I first arrived in the desert, I desperately wanted to be the first female explorer to cross the Sahara. The thought of it used to keep me up all night.

Sanmao: author, adventurer, pioneer. Born in China in 1943, she moved from Chongqing to Taiwan, Spain to Germany, the Canary Islands to Central America, and, for several years in the 1970s, to the Sahara.

Stories of the Sahara invites us into Sanmao's extraordinary life in the desert: her experiences of love and loss, freedom and peril, all told with a voice as spirited as it is timeless.

At a period when China was beginning to look beyond its borders, Sanmao fired the imagination of millions and inspired a new generation. With an introduction by Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti, this is an essential collection from one of the twentieth century's most iconic figures.

Sanmao, born Chen Mao Ping, was a novelist, writer, educator and translator. Born in China in 1943, she grew up in Taiwan. She studied in Taiwan, Spain and Germany before moving to the Sahara desert with her Spanish husband, a scuba diver and underwater engineer. In 1976, she gained fame with the publication of her first book, Stories of the Sahara. Her husband died while diving in 1979, and Sanmao returned to Taiwan the following year. From 1976 until her death in 1991, she published more than twenty books.

Mike Fu is a Brooklyn-based writer, translator and editor. He is a cofounder and editor of The Shanghai Literary Review, a transnational English language journal for arts and literature, and the assistant dean for global initiatives at Parsons School of Design.
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Published 1988-05-11 by Crown

Comments

Thinkingdom

Cappelen Damm

Sales info Read more...

Seiku-Sha

"Sanmao traveled the globe and wrote of her adventures, inspiring generations of women to see the world beyond their own homes." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/obituaries/sanmao-overlooked.html Read more...

La Nave di Teseo

Kwiaty Orientu

"Now, mainland-born and Taiwanese-raised Sanmao is taking her rightful place in the pantheon of female travel writers with the English-language publication of Stories of the Sahara. It's a bittersweet moment for her fans because Sanmao – whose real name was Chen Maoping – died in 1991 and isn't around to receive the acclaim from readers in the West that will surely follow. ... Sanmao deserves all the praise, even if it has been a long time coming." https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3036520/fearless-feminist-travel-writer-sanmao-finally-gets

Offer Pending

Meridiaan, Neleke Geel

La Galeria (3 book deal, also in Catalan)

Dreaming of the desert: my life in the Sahara, by Sanmao Sanmao leaves Taiwan for the unpromising backwater of Laayoune — a world of mute slaves, child brides and the neighbours' marauding goats Read more...