Can Xue

translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping

During the Cultural Revolution, minimally trained “barefoot doctors” were sent to the Chinese countryside, providing basic medical services and folk remedies. The author of this novel was one of them, and she draws on her experiences in the story of Mrs. Yi, a village herbalist who gathers her remedies on a nearby mountain. She struggles to find a successor—either the flighty but kindhearted Gray, who loves herbs but fears patients, or Mia, from nearby Deserted Village—and events become increasingly surreal. As the mountain changes shape and ghosts visit the living, mysterious connections between the body and nature emerge. (New Yorker)

Barefoot Doctor

soiled plants

 Just think, I need herbs for my legs, you go to the mountains to find herbs, and the mountains grow those herbs for you to pick. What a great game it is! Life can be such fun — who can bear to give up life?

my mind was full of flowering lilies and their wonderful bulbs...Oh, my goodness, I'm a lily! Who has ever seen a lily suffering from depression? Never! 

Barefoot Doctor quotes

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