Love Must Not be Forgotten - Softcover

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Chinese

The horrors of the Chinese cultural revolution linger in the memories and lives of Zhang Jie's characters in this engrossing collection of six short stories and a novella. In the title piece, a daughter, by not following her mother's deathbed wishes, learns of the great love of her mother's life. An elderly man in "An Unfinished Record" wonders: "Do we really have to wait until it's too late to do anything, before we remember all those countless old debts great and small that we've no way of settling now?" A young student learns an important life lesson about his own frailty from a woman who sells tickets for the bus in "Who Knows How To Live?" The novella, "The Ark," describes three single women who "...were quite used to hardship, so much so that they often failed to notice if there was an easier way," and the obstacles they must confront in order to survive, including giving up their children and tolerating sexual harassment. Though these are stories of often painful lives, they also remind us of the powers of love, commitment, and endurance. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith