In the Face of Death We Are Equal

Mu Cao is a bold, pioneering Chinese novelist who dares to challenge the status quo—living openly gay in China and shedding a strong light on the plight of everyday Chinese. This is a humorous, magical realist novel that explores the exploitation of the young living in China’s poor countryside. “Those who know me call me Old He, and they also know that I’ve worked in a crematorium for my entire life.” Here begins Mu Cao’s novel In the Face of Death We Are Equal, an unrelentingly realistic portrait of working-class gay men in the underbelly of Chinese society. He Donghai is days away from his sixtieth birthday and long-awaited retirement from his job as a corpse burner at a Beijing crematorium. As he approaches the momentous day, he reflects on his life and his relationship with a special group of young men who live and love on the margins of Chinese society. One of them is Ah Qing, a young migrant worker who leaves his village in Henan Province to earn a living in cities—and who has