“What happened to her books?” “They went up in smoke. Confiscated by the Red Guards, who promptly burnt them… — Dai Sijie

I was carried away, swept along by the mighty stream of words pouring from the hundreds of pages. To me it was the ultimate book: once you had read it, neither your own life nor the world you lived in would ever look the same.

We had been so unlucky. By the time we had finally learnt to read properly, there had been nothing left for us to read.

Four-Eyes’s parents probably wanted their son to be a writer. They must have thought it would be good for him to read books, even if he had to do so in secret.