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 an
