Tag: Novels (11)

In today’s post, we’ll read the first chapter of Ba Jin’s famous novel The Family. Set in 1920s Chengdu, The Family follows three brothers in the wealthy, tradition-bound Guo household as they each respond differently to the crushing weight of the old patriarchal system — one submitting, one resisting quietly, and one breaking free.

This is the first part of the first chapter of the modern literary sensation, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan, an autobiographical book about life as a gig worker in China’s platform economy.

Written by Zhang Muye, this ultra-famous fantasy series is about a team of cursed tomb raiders. The novel reads like a mix between Indiana Jones and ancient Chinese ghost stories.

In my most challenging post yet, you’ll read the first chapter of controversial literary bad boy Wang Shuo’s dark plunge into the criminal underbelly of Beijing. HSK 6+, not suitable for children.

Assassins and spaceships and evil doings! Start reading Chapter One of the novel Support Human Beings by Liu Cixin, author of China’s most famous sci-fi Three Body Problem.

Yu Hua (余华) is for sure my favorite author of Chinese modern lit. He writes the lives of ordinary village people, and like pretty much all great Chinese village-based fiction from the 20th century, the stories are full of vulgar realism, as you will soon see. But Yu Hua’s work is also tinged with bittersweetness, and for anyone with an HSK 5-6 vocabulary, his novels are surprisingly approachable.