Adrift in the South

When Xiao Hai turned fifteen, his family paid a vocational-school teacher 1,200 yuan to find him a factory job in Shenzhen. So began a decade spent moving between the garment mills and electronics factories of China's fast-growing southern cities.

Adrift in the South is a first-hand account of a life spent dodging corrupt officials and abusive employers, working long hours in brutal conditions and sleeping in overcrowded dormitories. Xiao Hai gives voice to a generation of migrant workers searching for survival, meaning and dignity in a country undergoing dramatic economic and political transformation.

A landmark work from China's migrant worker literature movement, this memoir offers a rare perspective on the human cost of the country's economic rise.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Granta Magazine Editions
Published: 05/26/2026
ISBN: 9781738536269
Pages: 320