A story of honesty and resilience

"Hearing my answer, tears suddenly welled up in his eyes," Zha recalls. They hugged, both overcome with emotion.

"I still remember that year in the break room, when he said to me, 'You must keep writing. When you publish a new book, come here, and I'll organize an event for you.' I never expected that, three years later, we would meet again like this. At that moment, I had a feeling that one must keep living, because only by continuing to live can moments like this happen."

Published in August by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, Woshi Zhaizili Zhangda De Nyuhai is not Zha's first book, but her first one centered squarely on her own life and the people in her hometown. It traces her journey through struggle, fear, loss, and panic, to courage, clarity and eventual renewal. Her deeply personal reflections, grounded in the daily realities of a remote Yi community in Yunnan, have resonated widely, making the book one of the season's most discussed nonfiction titles.

Writer Hu Anyan, author of the bestselling nonfiction book, I Deliver Packages in Beijing, says, "The book isn't about 'the village'; it's just a gateway into the author's 30 years of experience. The childhood chapters describe life in a Yi village — unfamiliar yet vivid. But it was the later chapters, about family, neighbors and self-understanding, that truly moved me. Those feelings go beyond ethnicity or gender. They touch the universal joys, sorrows and uncertainties we all encounter."

Zha grew up in the alpine region of Yunnan's Honghe Hani and Yi autonomous prefecture in Southwest China at an altitude of about 2,700 meters. Her village, home to fewer than 100 people of the Huayao branch of the Yi ethnic group, was long among the most underdeveloped areas in China. When introducing herself, she explains the meanings behind her name: Zha, her family name; Shiyi (11 in Chinese) is the season of her birth; and Re, a plant common around her home.

Zha's hometown of Shiping was poverty-stricken for decades, its steep land making rice cultivation difficult. So, villagers planted multiple crops for survival. She remembers only a winding dirt path leading out of the village; a road was blasted through the mountains in 2018 and paved by 2019.