Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden China

From one of China's most celebrated writers: a collection of thirteen audacious and powerful stories that reveal the sorrows, joys, shifts, and constants of everyday life inside this rapidly changing country. In the masterful hands of Yu Hua, these stories form a timely snapshot of a nation, filled with the deep feeling and inimitable humor that epitomize its people.

In the title story, a shopkeeper confronts a child thief and punishes him without mercy. “Victory” shows a young couple shaken by the husband’s infidelity, each scrambling to stake claims to the components of their shared life. Other tales show, by turns, two factory workers who spoil their only son, a gang of townsfolk who bully an innocent orphan, and a spectacular fistfight outside a refinery bathhouse. Taken together, these stories form a snapshot of a nation, lit with the deep feeling and ready humor that characterize its people. A sensation in Asia, Yu Hua's populist voice and exquisite wit have made him one of the most celebrated and bestselling writers in China. These visceral, flawlessly crafted stories explore the line between cruelty and warmth on which his country is precariously balanced. In the title story, a shopkeeper confronts a child thief and punishes him without mercy. "Victory" shows a young couple shaken by the husband's infidelity, each scrambling to stake claims to the components of their shared life. Other tales show, by turns, two factory workers who spoil their only son, a gang of townsfolk who bully an innocent orphan, and a spectacular fistfight outside a refinery bathhouse. Taken together, these stories form a snapshot of a nation, lit with the deep feeling and ready humor that characterize its people. A sensation in Asia, Boy in the Twilight affirms Yu Hua's place at the very forefront of literary fiction.

Zusammenfassung

These are expertly drawn sketches of a time and a place, the people thoroughly recognizable. The Boston Globe

[China s] transformations and what they leave in their wake have become the central theme of Yu s writing. . . . Many readers consider him China s greatest living author. The Huffington Post

Compelling. . . . Precise, elegant prose. The Economist

Mesmerizing tales. . . . Showcases this acclaimed writer s mastery. Elle

Folktales cast in a modern-day setting. . . . [Yu] uses the soft patter of language to wash away at least some of the hardened surface, and enduring mystery, of human behavior. *Time Out New York

• The stories in Yu Hua s Boy in the Twilight mine the lives of ordinary folks in small-town China. Vanity Fair

  A Chinese writer noted for his popular realism sketches a portrait of his country through fictional vignettes of everyday life. *O, the Oprah Magazine

• Yu s clear-eyed voice perfectly suits the lives of his characters, whose humanness we recognize, even as it makes us smile or, more often, flinch. *The Plain Dealer
• How much happiness should one expect? How much security? How much adventure? What sorts of kitchen appliances, what kind of husband? . . . The stories in this collection . . . deal with the treachery latent in ordinary human relationships: marriages, friendships, professional contacts, and the bonds between parents and children. . . . Hua s hidden China . . . is one of regular people: not allegorical caricatures or media archetypes, but men and women struggling to sort out their lives in the early years of reform. *Boston Review
• Yu Hua grabs his readers attention and keeps them guessing and involved till the very end. . . . Boy in the Twilight offers an enduring testimony to the power of the short story and its ability to convey epic themes through the point of a pen. *The New York Journal of Books

• Yu delivers wonderful and vivid character portrayals. . . . He has exposed a darker, painful side of ordinary life in China and invited us to see things as they truly are frightening both in their simplicity and their strength. South China Morning Post

  [Yu Hua] hones his recognizable minimalist craft to comic and tragic perfection, suffusing these brutally honest, philosophical pieces with compassion and cruel twists of sucker-punching irony that take the reader s breath away. Shelf Awareness (starred)

  A standout collection from an international literary superstar. Kirkus Reviews
  Aficionados of the short form will savor these stories as both adroit literature and a sharp cultural lens. Appreciative readers of such diverse recent collections as Emma Donoghue s Astray and Yoko Ogawa s Revenge will want to add this title to waiting shelves. Library Journal (starred)

Leseprobe

Appendix

My father used to be a surgeon. He was a strong, robust man with a resonant voice. He regularly stood at the operating table for ten hours at a time, but at the end of his shift his face would not show the slightest signs of fatigue, and as he walked back to our apartment his steps were loud and firm. Nearing home, he would often take a pee by the corner of the alley outside. His urine would splash noisily on the wall, like a sudden downpour of rain.

When my father was twenty-five years old, he married a pretty young worker from the textile mill, and in their second year of marriage she gave him a son, my older brother, and two years later she had another son, who was me.

When I was eight, the vigorous surgeon happened to get a day off from his usual hectic schedule. He enjoyed the luxury of sleeping all morning at home, and in the afternoon he went for a long walk with his sons and played with them on the beach for hours. On the way home he let one ride on his shoulders and carried the other in his arms. By the time they had finished dinner it was already dark, and he, his wife, and their two children sat underneath the parasol tree that stood outside their door. At that hour the moonlight shone down, casting the leaves mottled shadows over us, and a cool breeze rustled.

The surgeon lay on a makeshift bamboo lounge chair, his wife sat in an adjacent rattan chair, and my brother and I sat next to each other on a bench. We listened as our father explained how everyone had an appendix in their belly and how every day he had to remove, at the very least, twenty or so appendixes. His fastest time was just fifteen minutes fifteen minutes to perform the operation and cut off the appendix. We asked him what he did with it afterward.

Afterward . . . my father waved his hand dismissively. Afterward we throw it away.

Why s that?

An appendix isn t worth a fart, he answered.

Then he had a question for us. What are the lungs for?

For breathing in, my brother replied.

What else?

My brother thought for a moment: And breathing out.

And the tummy? What s the tummy for?

The tummy? The tummy digests things you have eaten. Again it was my brother who answered.

And the heart?

This time I beat him to it. The heart beats, thump thump!

My father glanced at me. That s true, you re both right. The lungs, the stomach, the heart, as well as the duodenum, the colon, the large intestine, the rectum, and whatnot they all have their various functions. It s just the appendix, the appendix at the end of the cecum . . . Do you know what the appendix is good for?

My brother had the answer ready. The appendix isn t worth a fart.

My father laughed and our mother, sitting next to him, laughed too. That s right, my father continued, the appendix isn t good for anything. When you breathe, when you digest your meals, when you re sleeping, none of these activities involves the appendix in the slightest. Even when you eat so much that you burp or have a tummyache and give a fart, this doesn t have anything to do with your appendix either.

My brother and I tittered when we heard our father …