Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019
The most ambitious work of fiction by one of the world’s greatest writers
"In this dreamlike novel . . . amid increasingly bizarre scenarios, appearances give way to hidden, otherworldly layers."
â€"New Yorker
In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flower beds and conspiracies abound. Some try to fleeâ€"whether to a mysterious gambling bordello, underground ancestral homes, or Nest County, where traditional medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self.
Can Xue's mesmerizing storytelling traces love’s many guisesâ€"satirical, tragic, transient, lasting, nebulous, and fulfillingâ€"against a kaleidoscopic backdrop of commerce and industry, fraud and exploitation, and sex and romance drawn from the East and the West.
