Showing results by author "Jeremy Tiang" in All Categories

A schoolgirl - Siu-Man - has committed suicide, leaping from her 22nd floor window to the pavement below. Siu-Man was an orphan, and Nga-Yee, the librarian older sister who'd been raising her, refuses to believe there was no foul play - although nothing seemed amiss. She contacts a man known only as N, a hacker and an expert in cyber-security and manipulating human behavior. But can Nga-Yee interest him sufficiently to take her case, and can she afford it if he says yes?

On a December morning in 1982, the courtyard of a Beijing siheyuan - a lively quadrangle of homes - begins to stir. Auntie Xue’s son Jiyue is getting married today, and she is determined to make the day a triumph. Despite Jiyue’s woeful ignorance in matters of the heart - and the body. Despite a chef in training tasked with the onerous responsibility of preparing the banquet.

Born in Shen Village in Southeast China, Shen Fuyu grew up in a family of farmers. Years later, Shen, now a writer, returned to his hometown to capture the village's rich history in the face of industrialization. Through his own childhood memories and those of his ancestors, Shen resurrects the working life of Shen Village through interlinked stories of 15 artisans as their lives intersect over the course of a century.

Already compared to Hemingway and Murakami, Shuang Xuetao is one of the most highly celebrated young Chinese writers—his English-language debut collects three dazzling novellas of Northeast China, mixing realism, mysticism, and noir. An enterprising inventor dreams of escaping his drab surroundings in a flying machine. A criminal, trapped beneath a frozen lake, transforms into a giant fish. A strange girl pledges to ignite a field of sorghum stalks.

A woman fleeing her previous existence meets a fellow Singaporean on an overnight train in Norway. A foreign worker is decapitated in an HDB building site accident. A Singaporean wife must negotiate Beijing as her British husband awaits a heart transplant. And in different corners of the world, Singaporeans and exiles mark National Day in their own ways.

Siew Li leaves her husband and children in Tiong Bahru to fight for freedom in the jungles of Malaya. Decades later, a Malaysian journalist returns to her homeland to uncover the truth of a massacre committed during the Emergency. And in Singapore, Siew Li's niece Stella finds herself accused of being a Marxist conspirator.

Enter the world of an elite Chinese family: a life of luxury, limitless power, and around-the-clock service, which includes their trusted nanny Yu Ling. Slipping in and out of the shadows, careful to speak deferentially, meticulous in her care of their only son Kuan Kuan, Yu has served the family for years and knows their secrets. But little do they suspect that Yu has secrets of her own. In the pressure-cooker political environment of China, the fates of even the most powerful families can reverse overnight.

Deep in the Kunlun Hills lives a deer whose fur has nine colors. One day she hears a cry for help and discovers a man drowning. Then, leaping from wave to wave, she saves him. When the man asks how he could ever repay this kindness, the Nine Color Deer simply requests that the man never reveal her whereabouts. Will he be able to keep his promise when the King and Queen offer a reward to anyone who can locate the Nine Color Deer? Inspired by a 1,500-year-old mural in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, Kailin Duan brings listeners a beautiful story about the power of kindness.

Hongmei is the perfect Chinese wife: beautiful, diligent, passive. Glen is the perfect American husband: intelligent, caring, well-off. From the outside, Hongmei and Glen's life in the San Francisco Bay Area seems perfect. But at home, their marriage is falling apart. Post-its left on the fridge are their primary form of communication.