Contemporary fiction books set in China (15)
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1.
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo EN
ChinaDescription:
Seeking her fortune in Beijing, Fenfang Wang leaves her rural farm to pursue her dreams in the city, lands a job as a film extra, falls for two unsuitable young men, and finally finds her true calling.
2.
Throwaway Daughter by Ting-Xing Ye EN
Description:
A dramatic and moving YA novel by Ting-xing Ye, the internationally acclaimed author of A Leaf in the Bitter Wind, working with her husband, William Bell, author of the award-winning novels for young adults Forbidden City, Zack, and Stones. . Throwaway Daughter tells the dramatic and moving story of Grace Dong-mei Parker, a typical Canadian teenager until the day she witnesses the Tiananmen massacre on television. Horrified, she sets out to explore her Chinese ancestry, only to discover that she was one of the thousands of infant girls abandoned in China since the introduction of the one-child... continue
3.
Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh by Mo Yan EN
Description:
The author of The Republic of Wine presents a new collection of innovative short stories, which range from the tragic to the comic and reflect the author's own disdain for bureaucracy and repression, that includes the title story, which is being made into a major film by acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
4.
Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by Yiyun Li EN
Description:
"The stories in this collection are mostly set in the China of the 21st century, where economic development has led to situations unknown to previous decades: residents in a shabby block of flats witnessing in awe the property boom; a local entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist sheltering women in trouble in her mansion; a group of retired women discovering fame late in their lives as private investigators specialising in extramarital affairs; a young woman setting up a blog to publicise an alleged affair of her father. Beneath the veneer of prosperity and opportunity, however, lie the struggles ... continue
5.
Owlish by Dorothy Tse EN
Description:
With your face covered, sneaking into a city you thought you knew, are you still yourself? Or have you crossed to another world, where the streets are unpredictable and the people strangers, where you might at any moment run into some unknown dream version of yourself? In a city called Nevers, there lives a professor of literature called Q. He has a dull marriage and a lacklustre career, but also a scrumptious collection of antique dolls locked away in his cupboard. And soon Q lands his crowning acquisition- a music box ballerina named Aliss who has tantalisingly sprung to life. Guided by his ... continue
6.
The Crazed : A Novel by Ha Jin EN
Description:
Professor Yang, a respected teacher of literature, has had a stroke and it falls to Jian Wan - who is also engaged to Yang's daughter - to care for him. It initially seems a simple duty until the professor begins to rave, pleading with invisible tormentors and denouncing his family... Are these just manifestations of illness, or is Yang spewing up the truth? In a China convulsed by the Tiananmen uprising, those who listen to the truth are as much at risk as those who speak it. Lyrical and heart-breaking, The Crazed is an incisive portrait of modern Chinese society.
7.
Description:
The sweeping history of modern China through the lens of the nation's controversial one-child policy. Frog opens with a playwright nicknamed Tadpole who plans to write about his aunt. In her youth, Gugu-- the beautiful daughter of a famous doctor and staunch Communist-- is revered for her skill as a midwife. But when her lover defects, Gugu's own loyalty to the Party is questioned. She decides to prove her allegiance by strictly enforcing the one-child policy, keeping tabs on the number of children in the village, and performing abortions on women as many as eight months pregnant.--
8.
Glänzende Aussicht : Roman by Fang Fang DE
Description:
Dieser heute in China unterdrückte Roman machte Fang Fang bei seinem Erscheinen 1987 schlagartig berühmt: Glänzende Aussicht erzählt das Leben einer einfachen Arbeiterfamilie aus Wuhan aus Sicht des verstorbenen jüngsten Sohnes. Es ist ein drastisches Porträt: Zu elft haust die Familie in einer dreizehn Quadratmeter kleinen Hütte. Schon die Jüngsten lernen stehlen, um ihren Beitrag zum Familienleben zu leisten, Schlägereien sind an der Tagesordnung und zärtlichere Töne rar. Im Schatten eines Vaters, der vor allem mit der Faust erzieht, ver... continue
9.
Flowers of Lhasa by Tsering Yangkyi EN
Description:
Flowers of Lhasa is a stark and urgent tale of four young women thrown into the seedy underbelly of a sacred city undergoing rapid change. After coming to the big city to look for work, a tragedy befalls Drölkar and leads her to a nightclub called the Rose and a life of selling her body for money. There, she falls in with Yangdzom, Dzomkyi, and Xiao Li. Four women--three Tibetan, one Chinese--all migrant laborers who move to the city and whose misfortunes take them down similar paths. We read of their encounters with wealthy, callous, and often violent men, their struggles to stay afloat and t... continue
11.
UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu Guo EN
Description:
Silver Hill Village, 2012. On the twentieth day of the seventh moon Kwok Yun is making her way across the rice fields on her Flying Pigeon bicycle. Her world is upturned when she sights a UFThing u a spinning plate in the sky u and helps the Westerner in distress whom she discovers in the shadow of the alien craft. It's not long before the village is crawling with men from the National Security and Intelligence Agency armed with pointed questions. And when the Westerner that Kwok Yun saved repays her kindness with a large dollar cheque she becomes a local celebrity, albeit under constant surve... continue
12.
Tales of Hulan River by Xiao Hong EN
Description:
The Tales of Hulan River by Xiao Hong is a poignant and lyrical depiction of rural life in early 20th-century China. Blending autobiography with fiction, the novel offers a deeply personal yet detached exploration of a small town on the banks of the Hulan River, as seen through the eyes of a young girl. Rather than following a conventional plot, the narrative presents a series of vivid sketches that capture the daily struggles, traditions, and harsh realities of peasant life. Since its publication, The Tales of Hulan River has been celebrated for its evocative prose and its stark yet poetic re... continue
13.
Meine Stadt by Xi Xi DE
Description:
Kann es ein Leben ohne Hongkong geben? Nicht für Aguo, den neunmalklugen, stolzen Bürger der Stadt. Mit seiner Schwester Afa lebt er im Haus der Tanten, genannt »die Lotusblumen«. Oder, an ihren übel gelaunten Tagen, »die Lotuswurzeln«. Aguo wundert sich über alles und jeden in der Schule, mutiert zum leidenschaftlichsten Elektroinstallateur der Stadt und lernt auf seinen Streifzügen durch das Hongkong der 70er Jahre die gesamte Bevölkerung kennen: Müllsammler und Telefonistinnen, Seemänner und Tischler. Sie alle sind vom Festland hier gestrandet, mit sehnsüchtigen Herzen und pompösen Plänen. ... continue
14.
Description:
A catastrophic disaster in China triggers a mother's heartbreaking choice and a daughter's reconciliation with the past in a powerful novel by the author of A Single Swallow and Where Waters Meet. In the summer of 1976, an earthquake swallows up the city of Tangshan, China. Among the hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for survival is a mother who makes an agonizing decision that irrevocably changes her life and the lives of her children. In that devastating split second, her seven-year-old daughter, Xiaodeng, is separated from her brother and the mother she loves and trusts. All Xiaode... continue
15.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien EN
Description:
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016, 2017 Folio and Baileys Prizes, and winner of the 2016 Giller Prize: an epic and resonant novel about the far-reaching effects of China's revolutionary history, told through the stories of two interlinked musical families, from the 1940s to the present day.
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