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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
Chamorro

VESSEL

Cai Chongda

China's answer to EDUCATED, HILLBILLY ELEGY and GLASS CASTLE: An unprecedented and heartfelt memoir that illuminates the lives of rural Chinese workers, offering a portrait of generational strife, family, love, and loss that crosses cultures and time.
Cai Chongda spent his childhood in a rural fishing village in Fujian province. When his father—a former communist gang leader turned gas station owner—has a stroke that partially paralyzes him, his responsibilities fall to Cai, his only son.

Assuming his new role as head of the family, Cai toils alongside his mother and older sister to pay the medical bills that have become a part of a rapidly changing Chinese society. As Cai works his way through university and moves to Beijing, eventually becoming a director of GQ China, he finds his life increasingly at odds with the family he supports but has left behind.

Like The Glass Castle and Hillbilly Elegy, Vessel neither romanticizes nor condemns the people and circumstances that shaped a young man's life, but instead offers a way forward, revealing how tradition can enrich modern life.

Writer, media personality, and entrepreneur, Cai Chongda was born in 1982. He grew up in the small coastal town of Minnan in the Fujian province of China. At 24, Cai became the News Editor of influential Chinese magazine, Modern Weekly. His provocative writing continues to make him a controversial figure in China. \Three years later, he was hired by GQ China as Director of Reporting, becoming the youngest person to hold this position in GQ's seventeen international branches. In 2015, Cai branched into the fashion world, founding the menswear brand Magmode.
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Published 2014-12-01 by Guomai

Comments

Alpha Media

Thinkingdom

"[Cai] Chongda paints a tantalizing portrait of a changing China in his dazzling English-language debut. ... his writing glows, juxtaposing the beauty of both small-town living and urban life. This shines with the bright talent of an excellent storyteller."

Harper via “[A]n unprecedented and heartfelt first-hand deep dive into the lives of rural Chinese workers that ultimately achieves universality in its portrait of generational strife, family, love and loss. A Chinese Glass Castle or Hillbilly Elegy that neither romanticizes nor casts the elder generation as backwards and stuck but offers a way forward where tradition enriches modern life It particularly stands out as a contemporary story that enlightens our perspective of the everyday people living China today.”

MIF (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber)