Contemporary Chinese Fiction

The Picador Book of Contemporary Chinese Fiction
Ed. Carolyn Choa & David Su Li-Qun

Sadly, the only contemporary Chinese fiction I've read in the past three years is the marvelous little Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie. So when I found a collection of contemporary short stories, all translated into English for the first time, I was delighted.

The book did not disappoint. The nineteen authors cover broad territory in the twenty-eight pieces: death, marriage, love, disappointment, the change of traditions, respect, ghosts, and how to share a crowded courtyard with too many other people. Each character is carefully sculpted with a minimum of movements, fully three-dimensional and elegantly portrayed. Reflecting on bits of life in communist times, the authors manage to present a rich, deeply colored glimpse of life using deceptively simple strokes. Reading is like listening to bells and watching the wind tickle a pine: mystical and yet very connected with the dirt of life.

I am babbling because it is hard to adequately sum up how different these stories feel from what I normally read. I suggest you do what you can to find them yourself.