City of Fiction - by Yu Hua (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A story of love, blood and dreams, set in early 20^th century China

In the early 20th century, China is a land undergoing a momentous social and cultural shift, with a thousand-year-old empire crumbling and the nation on the brink of modernity. Against this backdrop, a quiet man from the North embarks on a perilous journey to a Southern city in the grip of a savage snowstorm. He carries with him a newborn baby: he is looking for the child's mother and a city that isn't there.

This is a story of two people: a man who finds unexpected success after having journeyed to the hometown of the woman who abandoned him; and the woman he is searching for, who mysteriously disappeared to embark on her own eventful journey. This is a story about vanished crafts and ancient customs, about violence, love, and friendship. Above all, it's a story about change and about storytelling itself, full of vivid characters, ranging from bandits to vengeful potentates, from prostitutes to deceitful soothsayers, and surprising twists--an epic tale, as inexorable as time itself and as gripping as a classic adventure story.

Review Quotes

"Once an edgy experimentalist, Yu Hua is now one of China's best-selling writers."--The Paris Review

"City of Fiction is not just a city where the story happens, but a space in which the readers can let their imaginations roam free."--China Daily

Praise for The Seventh Day

"Elegant and sharp...By turns inventive and playful and dark and disturbing, with much to say about modern China." --NPR

"Surreal...Yu's most devastating critique of the new Chinese reality." --The New York Times Book Review

"Entertaining...Intriguing...In narrowing his lens, his work carries new urgency."--The Wall Street Journal

"A political allegory for life--and death--experienced in the chaos of a rapidly changing modern China." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A ghostly walk through contemporary China evokes the human cost of some of the big issues that nation is facing."--The Toronto Star

"Mesmerizing...Internationally award-winning novelist Hua crafts a discerning critique of contemporary Chinese culture through an evocative allegory revealing fates much worse than death."--Booklist

★ "[A] poignant fable about family bonds made not of blood ties but unbreakable heartstrings. It will assuredly reward Yu's readers, familiar and new."--Library Journal (starred review)

Praise for Brothers

"Sensational, sweeping...tremendous... In recognition of this terrific literary achievement, I think that, instead of the Year of the Ox, this should be the Year of Yu Hua."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

"Impressive...a family history documenting four decades of profound social and cultural transformation in China...[and] an irreverent take on everything from the Cultural Revolution to the capitalist boom...[A] relentlessly entertaining epic."--The New Yorker

"Portraits of contemporary China are rarely sharper or more savage."--TIME Magazine

"[A] great literary achievement...A sprawling, bawdy epic that crackles with life's joys, sorrows, and misadventures."--The Boston Globe

"Waggish but merciless... A consistently and terrifically funny read."--Los Angeles Times

"A work of rare scope and grandeur...[Yu Hua's] sharply unadorned language is all his own, carrying a ripe and pungent tone...This is the epic as plain-spoken brawl, one with blood on its face, a tear in the eye, and a grin on the lips. 10 out of 10 stars."--Pop Matters

"For their translation Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and Carlos Rojas receive high marks, giving their narrator a consistent voice with palpable wit and visible verve, shortening Yu Hua's sentences to fit English expectations but maintaining fidelity to the length and pace of his clauses, the real seat of an author's prose style."--Rain Taxi Review of Books

"Yu Hua's epic novel--a bestseller in his native China--is a tale of ribaldry, farce and bloody revolution, a dramatic panorama of human vulgarity...at once hyperrealist and phantasmagorical...We can see a true picture of the country refracted in this funhouse mirror."--The Washington Post