| Beijing Coma | |
| Translator: | Flora Drew |
| Author: | Ma Jian |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | Chinese |
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| English Release Date: | May 27, 2008 |
| Media Type: | |
| Pages: | 592 ppg |
| Isbn: | 0374110174 |
Beijing Coma is a 2008 novel by Ma Jian. It was translated from Chinese by Flora Drew.[1] The Chinese government has since banned the book.[2] Ma has stated that he wrote the book "to reclaim history from a totalitarian government whose role is to erase it" and named the novel Beijing Coma in reference to this.[3] [4] Beijing Coma was listed as one of The New York Times "100 Notable Books of 2008".[5]
The book follows the character of Dai Wei, a man who awakens from a coma to discover that ten years have passed since he was shot in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. The book's narrative switches between Dai Wei's time as a non-responsive coma patient to his life before his shooting.
Critical reception for the book was positive,[6] [7] [8] with Tash Aw calling it "a landmark".[9] In Bookmarks Sep/Oct 2008 issue, a magazine that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (4.00 out of 5) with the summary stating, "Even reviewers who found serious problems with Beijing Coma admired its political honesty and narrative premise".[10]
Pankaj Mishra compared Beijing Coma with the work of writers such as Milan Kundera, Josef Škvorecký and Ivan Klíma.[1] Michiko Kakutani praised the novel's translation while stating that the book "is desperately in need of editing".[11]
In April 2012 Ma protested the choice of China as the guest of honor at the London Book Fair.[12] Ma used red paint to smear a cross over his face and attempted to present a copy of Beijing Coma to Liu Binjie, but was stopped by security. Ma called his Chinese publisher a "mouthpiece of the Chinese communist party" and claimed that he had been manhandled while trying to give Liu his book.[13]