Mother River by Can Xue (Author), Karen Gernant (Translator), Chen Zeping (Translator)

Winner of the 2015 Best Translated Book Award:

“If China has one possibility of a Nobel laureate it is Can Xue.”—Susan Sontag:

Synopsis:

In Mother River, Can Xue, one of China’s most daring and visionary writers, invites us into a surreal landscape where reality is as fluid as a river itself. This collection of thirteen stories weaves together vivid, dreamlike narratives that challenge our perceptions of time, identity, and existence.
Through her signature blend of the absurd and the profound, Can Xue explores the fragile boundaries betwen the known and unknown, between humanity and nature. In these tales, a man tries to chase down an ellusive golden peacock, a woman communicates with mysterious, shifting forms of light, and the river that runs through a small village seems to pulse with memories of its own.
Surreal, provocative, and unique, Mother River reinforces Can Xue’s status as one of the most rewarding and complex writers working today—and a perennial favorite to win the Nobel Prize.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“There’s a new world master among us and her name is Can Xue.”—Robert Coover

“If China has one possibility of a Nobel laureate it is Can Xue.”—Susan Sontag

“There’s something inescapably cosmic about [Can Xue’s] writing: the grandness of her vision, the abstraction of her thought, the way the details of lived reality seem to shrink and assume an equal significance, as though one were orbiting a distant star and peering down.”—Bailey Trela, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Can Xue is a master at twisting philosophical ideas into realities that seem simple but are incredibly thoughtful and intricate.”—Emily Park, Booklist

“There’s no other writer in China like Can Xue.”—Chad Post, Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Can Xue is the pseudonym of celebrated experimental writer Deng Xiaohua, born in 1953 in the city of Changsha. She is the author of Vertical Motion, Frontier, Barefoot Doctor, and Five Spice Street, among other books.

Karen Gernant is a professor emerita of Chinese history.

Chen Zeping was a professor emeritus of Chinese linguistics.