I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

Can Xue’s enchanting collection is full of mystery and secrets, 16 dreamlike stories that create their own uniquely beautiful reality. Translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.I Live in the Slums combines elements of both Chinese materialities - the love of physical things - and Western abstract thinking. With this collection, Can Xue has created an immersive landscape that blends empirical fact and illusion, mixes the physical and spiritual, and probes the space between consciousness and unconsciousness. The stories bring readers to a place that is both readily familiar yet unmappable, highlighting the inherent unreliability in our relationship to the world around us. Can Xue’s stories observe no obvious conventions of plot or characterization. That is the only rule they follow. Instead, they tend to limn a disordered and poetic state given structure by philosophical wonder and emotional rigour."For such a disorienting collection, filled with surreal imagery and graphic, Fauvist moments involving cannibalism and death, I Live in the Slums also feels sprinkled with curious intimations of tranquillity. During an arduous journey, Can Xue’s bumpy flight seems to glide to these sudden landings, depositing the reader safely back on Earth before pinging off again into the unknown. Perhaps, with the wink of an eye, proffering a hug." - Victoria Zhuang, Harvard UniversityCan Xue is the pseudonym of the renowned avant‐garde author Deng Xiaohua. Can Xue was longlisted for the 2019 Booker International Prize for Love in the New Millennium, translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen. Can Xue’s other work includes Five Spice Street, Vertical Motion, The Last Lover, Frontier and I Live in the Slums. Longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. A major new collection of stories by one of the most exciting and creative voices in contemporary Chinese literature Can Xue’s stories observe no obvious conventions of plot or characterization. That is the only rule they follow. Instead, they tend to limn a disordered and poetic state given structure by philosophical wonder and emotional rigor. Combining elements of both Chinese materiality—the love of physical things—and Western abstract thinking, Can Xue invites her readers into an immersive landscape that blends empirical fact and illusion, mixes the physical and spiritual, and probes the space between consciousness and oblivion. She brings us to a place that is both readily familiar yet unmappable and can make us hyperaware of the inherent unreliability in our relationship to the world around us. Delightful, enchanting, and filled with secrets, Can Xue’s newest collection shines a light on the forces that give contours to the visible terrain we acknowledge as reality. A major new collection of stories by one of the most exciting and creative voices in contemporary Chinese literature

Can Xue’s stories observe no obvious conventions of plot or characterization. That is the only rule they follow. Instead, they tend to limn a disordered and poetic state given structure by philosophical wonder and emotional rigor.

Combining elements of both Chinese materiality—the love of physical things—and Western abstract thinking, Can Xue invites her readers into an immersive landscape that blends empirical fact and illusion, mixes the physical and spiritual, and probes the space between consciousness and oblivion. She brings us to a place that is both readily familiar yet unmappable and can make us hyperaware of the inherent unreliability in our relationship to the world around us. Delightful, enchanting, and filled with secrets, Can Xue’s newest collection shines a light on the forces that give contours to the visible terrain we acknowledge as reality. Combining elements of both Chinese materiality--the love of physical things--and Western abstract thinking, Can Xue's stories invite her readers into an immersive landscape that blends reality and illusion, mixes the physical and spiritual, and probes the space between consciousness and unconsciousness