Nainai has lived in Shanghai for many years, and the time has come to find a wife for her adopted grandson. But when the bride she has chosen arrives from the countryside, it soon becomes clear that the orphaned girl has ideas of her own. Her name is Fu Ping, and the more she explores the residential lanes and courtyards behind Shanghai’s busy shopping streets, the less she wants to return to the country as a dutiful wife. As Fu Ping wavers over her future, she learns the city through the ...

The classic story of a woman in post-World War II China. "[A] complex and penetrating portrayal . . . that best displays [Anyi's] gifts as a novelist."— The New York TimesInfatuated with the glitz and glamour of 1940s Hollywood, Wang Qiyao—a girl born of the longtang, the crowded, labyrinthine alleys of Shanghai's working-class neighborhoods—seeks fame in the Miss Shanghai beauty pageant. This fleeting moment of...

As the end of the world arrives in downtown Shanghai, one man’s only wish is to return a library book...When a publisher agrees to let a star author use his company’s attic to write in, little does he suspect this will become the author’s permanent residence...As Shanghai succumbs to a seemingly apocalyptic deluge, a man takes refuge in his bathtub, only to find himself, moments later, floating through the city's streets...The characters in this literary exploration...

I Love Bill and Other Stories showcases the work of Wang Anyi, one of China's most prolific and highly regarded writers, in two novellas and three short stories.A young artist's life spirals out of control when she drops out of school to pursue a series of unfulfilling relationships with foreign men. A performance troupe struggles to adapt to a changing China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. The head of an isolated village arranges a...

Nainai has lived in Shanghai for many years, and the time has come to find a wife for her adopted grandson. But when the bride she has chosen arrives from the countryside, it soon becomes clear that the orphaned girl has ideas of her own. Her name is Fu Ping, and the more she explores the residential lanes and courtyards behind Shanghai’s busy shopping streets, the less she wants to return to the country as a dutiful wife. As Fu Ping wavers over her future, she learns the city through the ...

The first English-language anthology of its kind, Red Is Not the Only Color offers a window into the uncharted terrain of intimate relations between Chinese women. As urban China has undergone rapid transformation, same-sex relations have emerged as a significant, if previously neglected, touchstone for the exploration of the meaning of social change. The short fiction in this volume highlights tensions between tradition and modernization, family and state, art and commerce, love ...

With a great charm and spirit, "Socialism Is Great!" recounts Lijia Zhang's rebellious journey from disillusioned factory worker to organizer in support of the Tiananmen Square demonstrators, to eventually become the writer and journalist she was always determined to be. Her memoir is like a brilliant minature illuminating the sweeping historical forces at work in China after the Cultural Revolution as the country moved from one of stark repression to a vibrant capitalist economy....

A short story collection hailed as a "welcome and valuable addition to our growing knowledge about the inner lives and literary talents of Chinese women" (Amy Ling, author of Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry).This remarkable anthology introduces the short fiction of fourteen writers, major figures in the literary movements of three generations, who represent a range of class, ethnic, and political perspectives.It is filled with une...

This book presents Chinese short-short stories in English and Chinese, integrating language learning with cultural studies for intermediate to advanced learners of Mandarin Chinese and students of contemporary Chinese literature. Each chapter begins with a critical introduction, followed by two or more stories in parallel Chinese and English texts; each story is followed by a vocabulary list, discussion questions, and a biography of the author.The chapters are organized around cent...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016WINNER OF THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE 2016SHORTLISTED FOR THE PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016.In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home: a young woman who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. Her name is Ai-Min...

Anthem is Ayn Rand’s classic tale of a dystopian future of the great “We”—a world that deprives individuals of a name or independence—that anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one—the great WE.In all that was left of humanity there wa...

A New York Times Notable book, this memoir by a journalist who lived in a small city in China is "a vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remar...