Written with an intoxicating lyricism and surrealistic majesty, Yu’s kaleidoscopic odyssey of lost love, fractured identity and obscured mythology reads like no other novel of recent times. Bathed in exotic, dreamlike imagery and reminiscent of Murakami at his most inventive, Braised Pork is a hallucinogenic slice of modern Chinese fiction.
One autumn morning after breakfast, Jia Jia's life changes for ever...
One morning in autumn, just after breakfast, Jia Jia finds her husband dead in the bathtub of their Beijing apartment. Next to him is a piece of folded paper, a sketch of a strange creature from his dream. He has left her no other sign.
Young, alone, and with many unanswered questions, Jia Jia sets out to discover what this this mysterious clue might mean. From the high-rises to the hidden bars of contemporary Beijing, she crosses paths with people who call the city home, including someone who may be able to offer her the love she had long thought impossible. Her journey takes her to the high plains of Tibet, and even to a shadowy, watery otherworld, a place she both yearns for and fears.
Cinematic, dreamlike and very beautiful, Braised Pork is an exploration of myth-making, loss, and a world beyond words, and of a young woman's search deep into her past in order to arrive at her future.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781787301870
Number of pages: 240
Weight: 294 g
Dimensions: 216 x 135 x 18 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'...a superb character study of a woman unrooted, whose life has brought about the slow erosion of her identity.'' - The Saturday Telegraph
'Braised Pork is mesmerising, incisive and utterly disarming. An Yu writes beautifully about loneliness, the experience of isolation - from others, from one's own past - and the possibility of human connection, however fragile.' - Rosie Price
'So elegant and poised, so tuned to the great mysteries of love and loss. Like a breeze on a still day, An Yu's is a voice I didn't know I needed until I felt it. Braised Pork is a major debut' - John Freeman
'Bold yet understated, Braised Pork is the debut of a supremely confident and gifted writer.' - Katie Kitamura
'What a singular, slippery, transfixing novel this is. An Yu achieves a hypnotizing emotional clarity as she takes her narrator ever further from a stifling life in Beijing into a watery realm unlike any I've read before.' - Idra Novey
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“Contemporary China Meets Magical Realism”
I’m all for new writers and new voices and so I was very excited to read Braised Pork by An Yu, which is being published in January. Set in contemporary Beijing, the novel weaves themes of isolation and fragile human... More
“A hallucinogenic, surrealistic work of Asian fiction”
Braised Pork opens with the protagonist, Jia Jia finding her husband dead, face down in the bath. Her grief is mingled with revulsion and a surprising lack of emotion, until she discovered a hastily scrawled drawing... More
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