From Howard Goldblatt, the renowned translator of Chinese fiction, comes a collection of more than eighty short-short stories (also known as flash fiction, with many stories under 300 words), encompassing a wide range of styles, tones, themes, and effects. There are absurdities worthy of the likes of Gogol, Kafka, and Charles Addams; there are ironies, surprises, poignantly thoughtful observations and statements; and there are autobiographical snippets, more revealing of attitude than time or place.
In this debut work of fiction, Goldblatt, probably one of the best-known foreign literary figures in greater China and a leading figure in world literature, takes the reader from the Colorado Rockies to Scandinavia to China, with additional visits to unmapped, psychological locales, offering glimpses into the joys, cruelties, and absolute wonders of contemporary life.
Howard Goldblatt is the translator of more than fifty novels from greater China, including works by Xiao Hong, Jiang Rong, and Mo Yan, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is the recipient of many literary awards including Translation of the Year (ALTA, 1999) and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has taken from his work as re-creator of other writers’ tales the tools to make him a creator of captivating tales of his own.
