That We May Live is bold, strange, and exciting. It takes risks, as most Chinese fiction does, and that risk pays off. Being a writer in China is risky business. Certain topics are off limits, writers like Ma Jian live in exile overseas, and journalists can write whatever they please about you, whether or not …
Braised Pork is an unusual kind of debut. It’s a novel that’s been finely tuned, elegantly crafted, lovingly polished to a mirror sheen, and yet ultimately comes off feeling a little flat, never reaching the narrative or philosophical heights it hinted at from page one. As a work of literary craftsmanship, it’s a fantastic book …
If there’s one nation with ludicrous potential to shake the world of literature, it’s China. And that world-shaking is slowly coming to pass, with Chinese sci-fi being heralded as the start of a new science fiction golden age and authors like Yan Lianke deserving of the Nobel Prize. With all this being said, any time …
Here is a very rare kind of book that has such a weight of cultural importance that, even if it were bad (which it absolutely is not) it would still be worth buying and reading. Fortunately, beyond just being important, it’s also spectacular. Broken Stars is valuable in the scope of Chinese genre fiction. Literature …
When it was first announced that the epic book series Legends of the Condor Heroes known as the ‘Chinese Lord of the Rings’ was to be translated for the first time into English, I waited with bated breath for the first book to be released, translated by the impeccably talented Anna Holmwood. The book was …
Translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas Yan Lianke is not beloved by his own government. Like all great artists, he has the skill and the confidence to hold up a mirror to the face of his society. This face doesn’t like what it sees, and so it hides the mirror as best in can …
China is the oldest nation on Earth that has never been truly conquered or had its culture destroyed. It offers more to learn than any other country you could ever visit. It is also an increasingly popular tourist destination and place to live as an immigrant (or expat if you prefer). Before you visit any …
“In science fiction, humanity is often described as a collective. In this book, a man named ‘humanity’ confronts a disaster, and everything he demonstrates in the face of existence and annihilation undoubtedly has sources in the reality that I experienced.” – Cixin Liu, author’s note, The Three Body Problem The Three Body Problem poses questions that are familiar …
Before I lived in Tokyo and Seoul, I lived in Shanghai. Expats and locals alike in Tokyo and Seoul have joked with me more than once about the harshness of Chinese culture and the unpleasantness of life there; jokes such as: ‘On the Seoul subway, keep your voice down. You don’t want to be a …