Hard Like Water TPB

A breakneck adventure story following the erotic love affair of party cadres Aijun and Hongmei during China´s Cultural Revolution On his return to his village in the Balou Mountains, soldier Gao Aijun sees a young woman wandering barefoot along the railway tracks in the warm late-afternoon sun. Her name is Hongmei. Aijun is instantly intoxicated, his wife - waiting patiently for him at home - quickly forgotten. Both Aijun and Hongmei hurl themselves into their town´s revolutionary struggle. Spending their days and nights stamping out feudalism, writing pamphlets and organising rallies, they become inseparable: they are the engines of history. The couple dig a ´tunnel of love´ - to further the revolution, of course, but also to connect their homes and provide a chamber for their secret rendezvous. While the unsuspecting villagers sleep, they sing political songs and compete in shouting-matches of Maoist slogans before making earth-shattering love. But when Hongmei´s husband finds them together one evening, their dreams of a life together begin to fall apart. Hard Like Water is a novel of immense emotional force from one of China´s greatest contemporary writers, a universal human drama about the nature of power and the dangers of hubris, as well as the freewheeling momentum of love and sexual desire.