Village of Stone brilliantly evokes the harshness of life on the typhoon-battered coast of China, where fishermen are often lost to violent seas and children regularly swept away. It is the beautiful,haunting story of one little girl"s struggle to endure silence,solitude and the shame of sexual abuse, but it is also an incisive portrait of China"s new urban youth, who have hidden behind their modern lifestyle all the poverty and cruelty of their past.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Coda

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I see myself on a boat, steering out to sea, to the seas of the Village of Stone. As the waves grow clearer in my memory, I find myself moving farther away from this enormous city, these enormous buildings and enormous crowds...Scattering torpedoes as I go, I storm the secret fortresses of my soul,conquering them one by one, as explosions reverberate through my eardrums and shattered whitecaps drench my clothes. Soon all this subsides, drifting down to the deepest seafloor, torpedoes still exploding into schools of cruising fish. The sea turns red and I feel pain - all those fish, I never wanted them to die ... I stand on the deck weeping, watching my tears fall into the sea, the sea of the Village of Stone, this place where I bury my fish, my memories, my childhood, and all the secrets of my past incarnation ...

                         Xiaolu Guo

                        Autumn, 2000