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banned book review Ma Jian Stick Out Your Tongue. Flora Drew, tr. New York. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 2006. 93 pages. $16. ISBN 0-374-26988-2
IN 1985, after being hunted by Chinese authorities for three years and being divorced from his wife, Ma Jian took a journey to Tibet to "find a refuge." The result of this spiritual quest culminated in a collection of stories under the title Stick Out Your Tongue, which was banned by the Chinese government when it was first published in the journal People's Literature in 1987. The editor, Liu Xinwu, lost his job, while the work was criticized as "pornographic, obsessive, filthy and shameful." Immediate banning of the book caused the price of the journal to soar in the black market. By this...