The April 3rd Incident Stories

From one of China's most famous contemporary writers, who celebrated novel <i>To Live </i>catapulted him to international fame, here is a stunning collection of stories, selected from the best of Yu Hua's early work, that shows his far-reaching influence on a pivotal period in Chinese literature. <p> In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Yu Hua and other young Chinese writers began to reimagine their national literature. Departing from conventional realism in favor of a more surreal and subjective approach inspired by Kafka, Faulkner, and Borges, the boundary-pushing fiction of this period reflected the momentous cultural changes sweeping the world's most populous nation. <p> The stories collected here show Yu Hua masterfully guiding us from one fractured reality to another. "A History of Two People" traces the paths of a man and a woman who dream in parallel throughout their lives. "In Memory of Miss Willow Yang" weaves a spellbinding web of signs and symbols. "As the North Wind Howled" carries a case of mistaken identity to absurd and hilarious conclusions. And the title story follows an unforgettable narrator determined to unearth a conspiracy against him that may not exist. By turns daring, darkly comic, thought-provoking, and profound, <i>The April 3rd Incident </i>is an extraordinary record of a singular moment in Chinese letters.