Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* With enthralling and precise language, this first book in Two Lines Press' Calico series of collected translated literature impresses. In "Sour Meat," a loose rendition of "Little Red Riding Hood," an office worker impulsively decides to visit her grandmother, driven by faded memories and the gentle insistence of a stranger. The smell of her grandmother's homemade tea leads her to a town where strange women brew the mysterious beverage, and she learns what makes it so nauseatingly enticing. In "Auntie Han's Modern Life," Miss Han owns a clothing shop in the bustling District E. As time passes, Miss Han becomes Auntie Han, and she sees her neighborhood change from an energetic town to a lifeless plot of land threatened by urbanization. In "Lip Service," Hanyi is an anchorwoman known for her exceptional beauty and voice. For 12 years, she's confidently delivered the news twice a day and worked "overtime," engaging in an illicit affair with her boss. However, as younger newscasters appear, she begins to fear for her job security and takes measures to ensure she never needs to fear again. This collection of speculative Chinese fiction is compelling and provocative, exploring the thin line between reality and absurdity. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
This remarkable anthology of Chinese speculative fiction offers seven tales of societal responsibility and individual freedom. In "A Counterfeit Life" by Chen Si'an, translated by Canaan Morse, a man becomes the leader of a subtle labor revolution. Two stories by Enoch Tam, both translated by Jeremy Tiang, dive deep into evocative settings: in "The Mushroom Houses Proliferated in District M" a town plants giant mushrooms for shelter, while "Auntie Han's Modern Life" revolves around a shopkeeper in a strange, changing district. Gender and self-determination lie at the core of both "Sour Meat" by Dorothy Tse, translated by Natascha Bruce, and "Flourishing Beasts" by Yan Ge, translated by Jeremy Tiang. In Zhu Hui's "Lip Service," translated by Michael Day, a charismatic aging news anchor plots to keep her job, and in "The Elephant," by Chan Chi Wa, translated by Audrey Heijns, the mysterious disappearance of an elephant throws a town into chaos, leading to a thorough exploration of authority and trust. By turns cryptic and revealing, phantasmagorical and straightforward, these tales balance reality and fantasy on the edge of a knife. This provocative sampler of Chinese fiction is both challenging and rewarding.