Loneliness and longing in Beijing
“Braised Pork”, a debut novel by An Yu, follows a young widow’s uncanny quest
Braised Pork. By An Yu. Harvill Secker; 240 pages; £13.99. To be published in America in April by Grove Press; $25.
IN LITERATURE, AS in other fields, China’s opening to the world has helped blur the boundaries between homegrown culture and diaspora life. Rather than decide irrevocably between East and West, younger figures such as the author and film-maker Xiaolu Guo—who writes in both Chinese and English—may move between continents and mine material from every place they land. “Braised Pork” is the debut of a Beijing-raised, Paris-based writer who has also studied in New York. It reads, however, not as a slice of expat—or exile—fiction, but as a contemporary Chinese novel that happens to have been written in English.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "Beneath the waves"
From the January 18th 2020 edition
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