–ALEX COLVILLE

Today Zou Jingzhi is a celebrated screenwriter, but once upon a time he was just another dust-caked farmer on the North China Plain. Originally published 12 years ago, Zou’s memoir of growing up in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution and then being sent down to the countryside is a tender look back and a pensive reflection on a time that many others remember for its violence and tragedy, but which for Zou was dominated by the banal and the boring. It’s an ordinary coming of age—the toys played with, the friends made, the lessons learned. History makes only the occasional grim cameo, reminding the reader that dramatic events are usually just the sideshow on life’s main stage.