Cocoon - by Zhang Yueran (Paperback)

About the Book

Cheng Gong and Li Jiaqi grew up together in a Chinese provincial capital in the 1980s. Now, many years later, the childhood friends reunite and are determined to follow the tracks of their grandparents' generation to the heart of a mystery. What exactly happened during that rainy night in 1967 in the abandoned water tower?

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE 2024 SINGAPORE LITERATURE PRIZE - TRANSLATION

"Cocoon is a stupendous novel, a beautiful and formidable achievement on the grandest scale. Its ruthless psychological realism is wondrously amplified by Zhang Yueran's magical powers of description. Zhang Yueran's scenes and images have an unworldly gleam of both hard-won insight and timeless truth. The novel is a triumph." -IAN McEWAN, author of the international bestseller Atonement

"In a novel by the young writer Zhang Yueran, two old
friends confront the legacy of China's tumultuous past. Ms. Zhang's focus and
finesse--plus the rhythmic subtlety of Mr. Tiang's English prose--make this novel
a luminous gateway into current Chinese fiction for readers seeking an
entry-point."--Boyd Tonkin, Wall Street Journal

"Zhang dazzles with an intricately crafted web of secrets centered on two childhood friends in China. In lyrical prose, Zhang deeply humanizes her leads as they look to the past in an effort to understand themselves. It adds up to a remarkable and tragic story of family and community." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Cheng Gong and Li Jiaqi go way back. Both hailing from dysfunctional families, they grew up together in a Chinese provincial capital in the 1980s. Now, many years later, the childhood friends reunite and discover how much they still have in common. Both have always been determined to follow the tracks of their grandparents' generation to the heart of a mystery that perhaps should have stayed buried. What exactly happened during that rainy night in 1967, in the abandoned water tower? Zhang Yueran's layered and hypnotic prose reveals much about the unshakable power of friendship and the existence of hope. Hers is a unique fresh voice representing a new generation of important young writers from China, shedding a different light on the country's recent past.

Review Quotes

Praise for Cocoon

WINNER OF THE 2024 SINGAPORE LITERATURE PRIZE - TRANSLATION

"Zhang Yueran's brilliant, devastating Cocoon traces
the intergenerational trauma of the Cultural Revolution and its impact on the
current generation. Jeremy Tiang's impeccable translation maintains the
suspense and the emotional heft of Zhang's tale, deftly conveying Zhang's
powerful depiction of characters, and a society, shaped and crushed by their
government." -Judges, 2024 SINGAPORE LITERATURE PRIZE - TRANSLATION

"In a novel by the young writer Zhang Yueran, two old friends confront the legacy of China's tumultuous past. Ms. Zhang's focus and finesse--plus the rhythmic subtlety of Mr. Tiang's English prose--make this novel a luminous gateway into current Chinese fiction for readers seeking an entry-point."--Mr. Tonkin, Wall Street Journal

"In this multilayered novel about the
sins and traumas of China's past, two childhood friends reunite in their
provincial home town after years apart. In the course of a winter night, their
alternating monologues sift through their family histories, circling a fateful
moment during the Cultural Revolution which left one man's grandfather comatose
and set the other's up for an eminent medical career. As the two friends'
fortunes become increasingly intertwined, they also trade stories of their
childhoods in the eighties, and the historical weight shouldered by their
generation." --The New Yorker

"Cocoon is a stupendous novel, a beautiful and formidable achievement on the grandest scale. Its ruthless psychological realism is wondrously amplified by Zhang Yueran's magical powers of description. The novel's two narrators, childhood friends, talking and remembering through a long night, speak for a lost generation making its way across an abyss. Their parents and grandparents are damaged and compromised, stunned into silence by the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. Li Jiaqi and her friend Cheng Gong are 'walking through a fog made of secrets, stumbling along a path we couldn't see.' A glimpse of a forbidden sibling, a dead baby sister, is one of the most extraordinary moments in contemporary literature. Li Jiaqi's hopeless pursuit of her emotionally unresponsive father is one of the most touching. A grandparent suspended for countless years between life and death summons a terrifying cultural stagnation. Zhang Yueran's scenes and images have an unworldly gleam of both hard-won insight and timeless truth. The novel is a triumph." --IAN McEWAN, author of the international bestseller Atonement

"Cocoon is an extraordinary coming-of-age novel, which confronts the cultural and psychological legacy of the older generations with deep understanding and penetrating insights. The story unfolds with narrative exuberance and acute intelligence. It is Zhang Yureran's masterpiece." --Ha Jin, author of the National Book Award Winner Waiting

"Flickers of personal history can quietly suggest a national scale. ... As the past gives up its ghosts, Cocoon becomes a tapestry."