Ninth Building is a fascinating collection of vignettes drawn from Zou Jingzhi’s experience growing up during the Cultural Revolution, first as a boy in Beijing and then as a teenager exiled to the countryside. Zou poetically captures a side of the Cultural Revolution that is less talked about—the sheer tedium and waste of young life, as well as the gallows humor that accompanies such desperate situations. Jeremy Tiang’s enthralling translation of this important work of fiction was awarded a PEN/Heim Grant. "These blunt, tamped-down translations of tales of youth during cultural revolution in Beijing address the grim cruelty of that time"—PEN America Zou Jingzhi is highly regarded in China as a fiction writer, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. He is a founding member of the Chinese theatre collective Longmashe. As a screenwriter, the films he wrote for Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar Wai have been well received at film festivals across the world. His plays and operas have been performed in China as well as internationally, and his poems and essays have been very influential, going into multiple reprints. Jeremy Tiang has translated over twenty books from Chinese, including novels by Yan Ge, Yeng Pway Ngon, Zhang Yueran, Shuang Xuetao, Lo Yi-Chin, Chan Ho-Kei, and Geling Yan. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. He also writes and translates plays. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in New York City. 16 November 1966 Freezing today—it feels extra cold, because the weather’s just turned. At least it’s warm at home, with the heating finally on. In the morning, we sat by the courtyard wall, the south-facing corner with the piles of loose soil and torn paper, the only patch untouched by the wind. By ‘we’ I mean myself, Zheng Chao, Zheng Xin and Yuanqiang.   Yuanqiang said they’d formed a unit and got Red Guard armbands printed with the official stamp, occupying a whole block in the school, shoving the desks together, sleeping there at night. They wrote slogans across the white walls of the classrooms, and even in the toilets. While correcting Teacher Hou’s thinking, they shouted a chant that Tian Shuhua came up with: ‘Hou, Monkey Hou, holding a ball in her hole/ When the monkey smiles, the ball falls.’ Teacher Hou teaches Chinese. I saw her recently, standing by the second-storey staircase. No one was paying any attention to her. As I walked past, she was singing a song about a sad maiden, something to do with resisting the Japanese. At the time, I had a strange feeling that when she finished her song, she’d jump from the second storey. I waited, but she didn’t jump. Her son sat at the other end of the corridor, pretending to play but really watching her. She once praised me for having talent. (I should delete that last sentence—too bourgeois!) We talked about it all morning, and decided to form a unit of our own. Yuanqiang said the place to print armbands was near Caishikou, past a place called Dazhi Bridge. There are many gangsters in that area; last trip they were robbed of three yuan. Zheng Xin said he’d bring a carving tool with him—even though it wasn’t a blade, it could still scratch open someone’s face. I felt heartened by his words. We prepared to set off the next day, as soon as the grown-ups left for work. We had five yuan between us. I contributed one. 17 November 1966   Today, we took the number one bus to Xidan. I was the only one who had a ticket, the other three slipped on without one. I did too, but spent the whole journey worrying and in the end bought one before getting off. How stupid! From Xidan we headed south. When we arrived at Dazhi Bridge, all four of us were anxious. I put my hand in my trouser pocket, which held a weight from a set of scales— hopefully this would be hefty enough to damage a gangster’s head. It sat cold and heavy in my pocket. I couldn’t warm it. Zheng Xin whistled as he strolled, his hand inside his jacket. The carving tool he held was our heartbeat. The event we feared never happened. The wind was so strong we had to jog along.   After Dazhi Bridge, we waked into a rope shop to ask directions to the fabric-printing place. The old man said a name that sounded like ‘Something Hutong’. This was the first time I smelled dye. We could detect it from some distance away. Later I learned that this was the odor of yellow. Each color has its own scent. Yellow makes me think of illness. A young lady served us. She reminded me of Liu Naiping’s older sister from Door Three. I once went swimming with her; she wore a red swimsuit. I believed at the time that only female college students should be called young ladies, and even then only the ones like Zoya. Liu Hulan didn’t resemble one, nor did Zhu Yingtai, nor did my own sister. She wore a face mask, only her eyes showing, but I could tell when she was smiling. All four of us were a little tense, a little awkward. We ordered twenty-one armbands, four inche