Beijing Sprawl by Zechen Xu (English) Paperback Book

Description: Beijing Sprawl by Zechen Xu, Eric Abrahamsen, Jeremy Tiang "An exploration of the true meaning of home, this short story collection comprises nine vignettes about the lives of four friends who share a small apartment on the outskirts of Beijing" FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Stories of friendship, failure, and survival from Xu Zechen, author of "some of the most exciting and energized writing coming out of China now." (Paul French)Muyu, a seventeen-year-old from a small village, came to Beijing for his piece of the dream: money, love, a good life. But in the city, daily life for him and his friends--purveyors of fake IDs and counterfeit papers--is a precarious balance of struggle and guile. Surveying the neighborhood from the rooftop of the apartment they all share, the young men play cards, drink beer, and discuss their aspirations, hoping for the best but expecting little more than the comfort of each others company. In these connected stories translated from Chinese by Eric Abrahamsen and Jeremy Tiang, Xus characters observe as others like them--workers, students, drifters, and the just plain unlucky--get by the best ways they know how: by jogging excessively, herding pigeons, building cars from scraps, and holding their friends close through the miasma of so-called progress. Table of Contents 1. "On the Rooftop" 2. "Wheels are Round" 3. "Six-Eared Macaque" 4. "Coming of Age" 5. "Invisible Cities" 6. "The Dogs Been Barking All Day" 7. "Prince of Morocco" 8. "If a Snowstorm Seals the Door" 9. "Brother" Review "Seventeen-year-old Muyu leaves his rural village to make a life in Beijing, where things arent always as great as they seem from afar. He lives with three friends in a dusty apartment, and in Xus stories detailing their travails, we learn about how a changing city can change its people, too, both for the good and for the bad. In a place thats constantly evolving, can one ever truly feel at home? Muyu and his friends arent quite sure, but theyre going to try their best despite all odds."--NPR"[Against] the Chinese governments emphasis on innovation and overwork...the protagonists of Beijing Sprawl arent running to get ahead; theyre running so they dont go insane. And, significantly, no matter where the narrator jogs, he always ends up back where he began....Instead of allegorizing success, Xu uses running as a metaphor for long-term precarity." --Mark Breitwater, 4 Columns"Theres a lot thats compelling about Beijing Sprawl, from the vivid descriptions of the titular city to the unpredictability thats habitual for many of this books characters--and sometimes leads them to unsettling fates. Xu Zechens tales of Beijing and the lives on its margins have a relationship to that city much like the one Irvine Welshs fiction has to Edinburgh--writing thats at once an evocation and a demystification of the city where its set." --Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders"Translated by Jeremy Tiang and Eric Abrahamsen, Xu Zechens Beijing Sprawl introduces us to a ragtag quartet of would-be social climbers. The high cost of urban living, accompanied by thundering tedium and punctuated with shocking violence, proves to be a devilishly swirling drain from which there can be no escape in Xus interconnected fictions." --Justin Walls, The Cercador Prize"Cliché is generally considered toxic in writing, but Beijing Sprawl, a newly translated collection of connected stories, embraces it....For a book about urban migrants hoping to eclipse the tired rhythms of their own daily lives, the repetition comes across as a literary choice. The connected stories unfold with a looping circularity that made me feel disoriented and déjà vu at the same time....The books nine stories riff off one another, and their repetitive form gets at the frustrating contradiction inherent in Xus characters lives: one of constant motion and social immobility." --William McCormack, The China Project"People like Muyu and his friends may seem invisible in a sprawling, modern city like Beijing, but Xu and translators Tiang and Abrahamsen show that they have as much of a pulse on the city as the more well-to-do characters more typical in novels and memoirs."--Asian Review of Books"Tinged with surrealism, realism, dry humor, and whimsicality, author Xu Zechen writes tragedy in a way that makes it seem so big and small simultaneously....The short stories within Beijing Sprawl are as much about the toil of the working class as they are about the people you meet along the way." --Asia Media International"In author Xu Zechens telling, there are few urban destinations more unforgiving than Beijing. A city that sucks in migrants and drifters, chews them up and spits them out again, Chinas capital is where high-school dropout Muyu and his friends go searching for "greener" pastures in this collection of interrelated stories...a highly enjoyable quasi-sequel to 2014s Running through Beijing." --China Book Review"Muyu, picaresque hero of The Six-Eared Macaque, is a transplant from the countryside, having moved to Beijing because he had no other prospects. He shares a tenement flat with three other young men, all of whom aspire to greatness despite the squalor and high cost of city life. Each of the young derelicts crosses paths with various colorful Beijing denizens.... With money scarce and cops sweeping through residences with batons and bulldozers, the episodes often end in irony and tragedy." --Publishers Weekly"The stories [in Beijing Sprawl] add up to a picture of contemporary China and the people who live in a place with more people than meaningful work, where staying fed and housed by honest means is a daily struggle, and government institutions insist that poverty is an individual choice. Jeremy Tiang and Eric Abrahamsens rendering of these stories into idiomatic English imbue them with an immediacy that highlights their relevance and humanity and transcends their specific political-geographical origin." --The Book Beat"Like my favorite fiction, these stories subtly pierce through ordinary lifes pitfalls to reveal something dreamlike and mythological lurking below. Another gem of a translation from a writer who fascinates me."--Fernando A. Flores, author of Valleyesque and Tears of the Trufflepi"Bored country kids, hutong hucksters, and gig economy slackers mingle with forgers, thugs, and former jailbirds to populate Xu Zechens lyrical writing. Realism and surrealism, tragedy and farce play out in the anonymous backstreets of Beijings seemingly endless urban sprawl. This is some of the most exciting and energized writing coming out of China now." --Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking"The unforgettable characters in Beijing Sprawl have come to the city to try their luck against the odds. They drink beer; munch on donkey burgers; get in brawls; and dream of forming boy bands, finding their doppelgängers, and falling in a love that can outlast dislocation. Jeremy Tiang and Eric Abrahamsen are gifted translators who bring these voices to life. At turns laugh-at-loud funny and utterly heartbreaking, Xu Zechens stories are a must read."--May-lee Chai, author of Tomorrow in Shanghai Review Quote Praise for Xu Zechen and Running Through Beijing "Reflects on the scattergun entrepreneurialism and economic inequality of the new Beijing." --Financial Times "[Xu Zechens] silent toiling has given voice to the equally silent social classes struggling on the boundaries of the countrys urban landscape." --China Daily "Xu has something real to offer the ever-burgeoning literature of Chinese despair." --Words Without Borders "A window onto Beijings seamy, crime-ridden underbelly...a vibrant story by one of Chinas rising young writers. Id check it out if I were you." -- Book Riot Excerpt from Book Feng Nian was thirty. Thats why Uncle and Auntie Feng were worried. When it comes to getting married, age is always a big problem. As old as he was, what was he waiting for? The longer he left it, the lower his market value. And Feng Nian surely understood the marketplace better than any of us. That s the main reason he was anxious. We talk about life as if its groping for the next stepping stone to get across the river, but actually the vast majority of people see their whole lives laid out clearly. We just replicate what the generation before us did, and the generation before them, and the generation before-before. All these forebears who lived like that, who had to live like that--we cant all hope for a miracle. Feng Nian wouldnt be able to stay in Beijing forever. He understood that with his level of talent, ability and luck, he would surely end up like ninety-five percent of people, and he should snatch a couple of mouthfuls of food while he was young, then push the bowl aside and walk away. He was clinging to Beijing, but that was a young persons game, because everything seems possible when youre young. No harm lying to yourself for a while, but now it was time to think of settling down, and he needed a reminder that thirty was no longer young. But he wouldnt accept that. Look at how he trussed himself up in a suit every day, trying to look respectable--thats how I knew he wasnt ready to give up, even though there was no sign his luck would turn. Details ISBN1949641325 Author Jeremy Tiang Pages 220 Publisher Two Lines Press Language English Year 2023 ISBN-10 1949641325 ISBN-13 9781949641325 Format Paperback Publication Date 2023-06-13 Imprint Two Lines Press Translator Jeremy Tiang DEWEY 895.136 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:142439292;

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