Golden Age is a Chinese bestseller by cult writer Wang Xiaobo that now appears in a new translation and charts the story of Wang’s work and sex life, beginning with the Cultural Revolution. The novel opens with a 21-year-old Wang working in a remote commune and starting an affair with the 26-year-old “old shoe” Chen Qingyang. What follows is some of the funniest writing on sex I have encountered, written in the form of “confessions” to the Communist party. Wang’s tone is that of an “intellectual youth” turned peasant diligently…