The Book of Shanghai: A City in Short Fiction
About this ebook
When a publisher agrees to let a star author use his company’s attic to write in, little does he suspect this will become the author’s permanent residence...
As Shanghai succumbs to a seemingly apocalyptic deluge, a man takes refuge in his bathtub, only to find himself, moments later, floating through the city's streets...
The characters in this literary exploration of one of the world’s biggest cities are all on a mission. Whether it is responding to events around them, or following some impulse of their own, they are defined by their determination – a refusal to lose themselves in a city that might otherwise leave them anonymous, disconnected, alone.
From the neglected mother whose side-hustle in collecting sellable waste becomes an obsession, to the schoolboy determined to end a long-standing feud between his family and another, these characters show a defiance that reminds us why Shanghai – despite its hurtling economic growth –remains an epicentre for individual creativity.
About the author
Wang Anyi (born 1954) is a novelist, screenwriter, and short story writer. She is the author of over 100 short stories, 40 novelettes, 10 novels, and various essays and prose pieces. Her most famous work is The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, which was adapted for screen (by Stanley Kwan), television (by Ding Hei) and stage. She is among the most widely read authors of the post-Mao era and is one of China’s most influential and innovative writers. She has won numerous awards including the Mao Dun Literature Award in 2000, and her novel Baotown has been nominated for the Los Angeles Times’ Book of the Year, and the 2011 Man Booker International Prize. She lives in Shanghai and is currently chair of the Writers’ Association of Shanghai, and professor of Chinese literature and creative writing at Fudan University.
Xiao Bai was born in 1968 in Shanghai. He is the author of Horny Hamlet, a prize-winning collection of essays, and the novel Game Point. In 2013 his novella, Xu Xiangbi the Spy, won the tenth annual Shanghai Literary Prize, and in 2018 his novella Blockadewon the Lu Xun Literary Prize. French Concession (HarperCollins, 2015) was his first novel to be translated into English. He lives in Shanghai.
Chen Danyan was born in 1958 in Beijing, and moved to Shanghai as a child. After studying Chinese literature at East China Normal University (1978–1982), she worked as an editor for the Children’s Epoch magazine. Her autobiographical novel Nine Lives(1992) dealt with childhood experiences of the Cultural Revolution, and received the UNESCO Prize for Peace and Tolerance and was nominated for the 1996 German Youth Literature Prize. She is best known for her trilogy of biographical narratives: Shanghai Memorabilia, Shanghai Princess, and Shanghai Beauty, and central to her recent work is an exploration of the lives of younger generations (in particular young women), growing up in the context of China’s one-child policy.
Shen Dacheng is a columnist, novelist, short story writer and editor. After graduating from Shanghai University in Industrial Management, she worked in marketing and then began a column (featuring short stories based on real characters’ lives) called ‘Strange People’ in the literary publication Sprout. Real name Xu Xiaoqian, she takes her pen name from a popular Shanghai pastry shop. Her first collection The Ones in Remembrance was published in 2017. Her 2018 short story ‘Miss Box Man’ is set in a world of virus-induced fear, where the rich live in sealed containers which protect them from the pathogen, and the rest live a life of a constant, compulsory blood tests and hosings-down with disinfectant. She is currently working on a new collection to be titled Asteroids in the Afternoon.
Cai Jun is one of China’s bestselling horror writers. He started his writing career at twenty-two and was quickly awarded the Bertelsmann People’s Literature Award for New Writers. His novels include The Tower of Black Swan, Mysterious Message, Murdering Things Past, and the serialised novel The Longest Night. His novel 19th Floor of Hell won the Sina Literary Award and is one of three of Jun’s novels to have been made into a feature film. Two of his books have been developed into television series, and his work has been translated into six languages.
Chen Qiufan (born 1981), also known as Stanley Chan, is a science fiction writer, columnist, and scriptwriter. His first novel The Waste Tide, (originally published in 2013) has been translated into English by Ken Liu and published by Tor & Head of Zeus in 2019. His short stories have won three Galaxy Awards for Chinese Science Fiction, and twelve Nebula Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chinese. ‘The Fish of Lijiang’ received the Best Short Form Award for the 2012 Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards. His stories have been published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, MIT Technology Review, Clarkesworld, Year’s Best SF, Interzone, and Lightspeed, as well as influential Chinese science fiction magazine Science Fiction World.
Xia Shang (born in Shanghai, 1969) is a novelist, often associated with the post-avant-garde school of Chinese writers, as well as a graphic designer. He is the author of the novels East Coast Chronicle, The Lazarus Child’s Wandering, Taxidermist and Bar
Teng Xiaolan was born in Shanghai in 1976, and began writing in 2001. Her first short story collection, Ten Roses, was published in 2005. She has had pieces featured in People’s Literature magazine and various other literary journals. She received the Lu Xun Literature Prize for her novella A Beautiful Day.
Fu Yuehui was born in Baoshan, Yunnan Province in 1984. He was among the first class to graduate from Fudan University’s Literary Writing MFA, and has had short stories printed in a number of publications including Mountain Flowers, Shanghai Wenxue,Master, Chinese Writers, Youth Literature, Changcheng, Hongdo
Wang Zhanhei is one of China’s most successful young writers, and author of two short story collections, Air Cannon, which won the inaugural Blancpain-Imaginist Literary Prize, and Neighborhood Adventurers, which focuses on the lives of working class urban Chinese people. Her work often focuses on the Shanghai neighbourhood of Dinghai Bridge. A graduate from Fudan University, she also works as a high-school teacher.
