China: A Traveler's Literary Companion

Traveling to China? This book is a great complementary guide providing literary short stories from China's best writers. This book focuses on modern China and the stories explore the shifts and cracks in recent Chinese society as it moves towards its goal of becoming the world leader in the market economy. Recommended for anyone wishes to learn more about China's culture and a must have for the traveler going to China.

This is a wonderful collection of stories. The wise selections cover a lot of ground, both stylistically and geographically. "The Floating City" is a sharply written and translated allegory of the recent history of Hong Kong. Mo Yan's "The Old Gun" is a beautifully and sensuously rendered tale that takes place during the floods of the early sixties when many children in Shandong were starving. The boy protagonist's surprising and violent past leads to his violent end. There's so much inevitability in the dramatic events of this story that it's poignant. A classic.