Tag Archives: China

** Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn

One cold day in 1992, a container of bath toys went overboard in a freak storm over the Pacific. The toys (ducks and other creatures) floated all the way to Alaska, and perhaps beyond, and the author of Moby-Duck goes … Continue reading

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** Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler

Having Loved Country Driving and River Town by the same author, I tried the middle book in the series, Oracle Bones, and I was disappointed. Not that some of the stories are not just as interesting as in the other … Continue reading

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*** River Town by Peter Hessler

Having read Peter Hessler’s more recent stories about China, I thought it would be interesting to read about his first stay in China, when he was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996 and 1997. River Town has the same authentic, … Continue reading

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Larry’s Kidney by Daniel Asa Rose

Larry’s Kidney is the barely-believable and, if true, rather shocking story of how the author helped his cousin procure a black-market kidney in China. Larry is obese, diabetic, a dialysis patient, and he has never met a vegetable he would … Continue reading

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The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

Perhaps I should pick less dark novels? The Vagrants tells the story of a Chinese town after the Cultural Revolution where a supposed “counter-revolutionary” is savagely executed (and her kidneys given to a high-ranking officials) and the ensuing popular protest … Continue reading

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Factory Girls by Leslie Chang

What an interesting book, despite its flaws! Factory GirlsĀ tells the story of the young women who work in Dongguan, a city close to Hong-Kong where, it seems, all the luxury bags of the world (think Coach and Gucci) and many … Continue reading

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The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is the story of a Shanghai woman whose adult life starts by starring in a beauty pageant and ends in poverty. It’s always difficult to appreciate translated work. This novel mixes lyrical descriptions (not my … Continue reading

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Filed under New fiction