Boy in the Twilight
  • Published: 7 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9780804171021
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $38.00

Boy in the Twilight

Stories of the Hidden China

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From the acclaimed author of Brothers and To Live: thirteen audacious stories that resonate with the beauty, grittiness, and exquisite irony of everyday life in China.

Yu Hua’s populist voice and exquisite wit have made him one of the most celebrated and bestselling writers in China. These visceral, flawlessly crafted stories explore the line between cruelty and warmth on which his country is precariously balanced.
        In the title story, a shopkeeper confronts a child thief and punishes him without mercy. “Victory” shows a young couple shaken by the husband’s infidelity, each scrambling to stake claims to the components of their shared life. Other tales show, by turns, two factory workers who spoil their only son, a gang of townsfolk who bully an innocent orphan, and a spectacular fistfight outside a refinery bathhouse. Taken together, these stories form a snapshot of a nation, lit with the deep feeling and ready humor that characterize its people. A sensation in Asia, Boy in the Twilight affirms Yu Hua’s place at the very forefront of literary fiction. 
  • Published: 7 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9780804171021
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $38.00
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About the author

Yu Hua

Yu Hua was born in 1960 in Zhejiang, China. He finished high school during the Cultural Revolution and worked as a dentist for five years before beginning to write in 1983. He has published three novels, six collections of stories, and three collections of essays. His work has been translated into French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. In 2002 Yu Hua became the first Chinese writer to win the prestigious James Joyce Foundation Award. His novel To Live was awarded Italy’s Premio Grinzane Cavour in 1998, and To Live and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant were named two of the last decade’s ten most influential books in China. Yu Hua lives in Beijing.

Also by Yu Hua

To Live
The April 3rd Incident
Cries in the Drizzle
Chronicle Of A Blood Merchant
See all

Praise for Boy in the Twilight

  • "Compelling.... Precise, elegant prose." --The Economist
  • "These are expertly drawn sketches of a time and a place, the people thoroughly recognizable." --The Boston Globe
  • "The prolific Yu's stories tease the reader to expect some epiphany, but the real payoff lies subtly within.... A series of quirky folktales cast in a modern-day setting.... He uses the soft patter of language to wash away at least some of the hardened surface, and enduring mystery, of human behavior.... Demonstrates Yu's strength as a writer." --Time Out New York
  • "The stories in Yu Hua's Boy in the Twilight mine the lives of ordinary folks in small-town China." --Vanity Fair
  • "A Chinese writer noted for his 'popular realism' sketches a portrait of his country through fictional vignettes of everyday life." --O, the Oprah Magazine, "Ten Titles That Will Broaden Your Point of View"