Rickshaw: The Novel Lo-t-o Hsiang Tzu Book

A classic of Chinese literature that protratis the simplest of quests: a rickshaw-pulling boy whose sole dream in life is as simple as owning hsi own cart. One could possibly attempt to minimize this classic as a portrait of Chinese economy at the beginning of last century. Or a gripping testimony of poverty. In China...

China: so far and yet so close. And that is precisely my point: what is the difference between a boy who works and wants to own his own way of living, versus a boy who sells his body, like I did, on the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in order to pay his college tuition and become better? It may seem far-fetched, but this book really helped go through the ordeal of my hustling/prostitution days.

What happens int he ned is that the author ended up portraying an era and a country, much in the manner Puerto Rican writer Magali García Ramis did in her novel Felices Días, Tío Sergio. when an author is able to do that, the result is a timeless narrative that will transcends all boundaries of time and space. Rickshaw Boy is not about China. It's about Puerto Rico too. And the rest of third world. And Mississippi. And the whole Bible Belt.