Distant Sunflower Fields

In this collection of dispatches from China’s far northwestern province of Xinjiang, Li Juan recalls helping her mother to grow sunflowers from the barren earth. Li Juan’s skill as a writer captures the extraordinary everyday in this sensitive and lively record of both the fragility of life, and the joys and dignity of family bonds.

An iron-willed mother, an ageing grandmother, a pair of mismatched dogs and 90 mu of less-than-ideal farmland: these are Li Juan’s companions on the steppes of the Gobi Desert.

Writing out of a yurt under Xinjiang’s endless horizons, she documents her family’s quest to extract a bounty of sunflowers amid the harsh beauty and barren expanses of China’s northwest frontier. Success must be eked out in the face of life’s unnegotiable realities: sandstorms, locusts and death.

While this small tribe is held at the mercy of these headwinds, they discover the cheer and dignity hidden in each other. But will their ceaseless labours deliver blooming fields of green and yellow? Or will their dreams prove as distant as they are fragile?

Contributor: Christopher Payne (Translated by)

Translator: Christopher Payne

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.