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Asian Literature
The Backstreets
A Novel from Xinjiang Perhat Tursun Translated by Darren Byler and Anonymous
The Backstreets is an astonishing novel by a preeminent contemporary Uyghur author who was disappeared by the Chinese state. Perhat Tursun follows an unnamed Uyghur man who comes to the capital of Xinjiang. Seeking to escape the pain and poverty of the countryside, he finds only cold stares and rejection.
$20.00 / £14.99 paper 978-0-231-20291-6 $80.00 / £62.00 cloth 978-0-231-20290-9 September 2022 208 pages
The Membranes
A Novel Chi Ta-wei Translated by Ari Larissa Heinrich
First published in Taiwan in 1995, The Membranes is a classic of queer speculative fiction in Chinese. Chi Ta-wei weaves dystopian tropes—heirloom animals, radiation-proof combat drones, sinister surveillance technologies—into a sensitive portrait of one young woman’s quest for self-understanding.
$17.00 / £13.99 paper 978-0-231-19571-3 $65.00 / £50.00 cloth 978-0-231-19570-6 2021 168 pages
MODERN CHINESE LITERATURE FROM TAIWAN
Longing and Other Stories
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki Translated by Anthony H. Chambers and Paul McCarthy
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki is one of the most eminent Japanese writers of the twentieth century, renowned for his investigations of family dynamics, eroticism, and cultural identity. Most acclaimed for his postwar novels such as The Makioka Sisters and The Key, Tanizaki made his literary debut in 1910. This book presents three powerful stories of family life from the first decade of Tanizaki’s career that foreshadow the themes the great writer would go on to explore.
$20.00 / £14.99 paper 978-0-231-20215-2 $80.00 / £62.00 cloth 978-0-231-120214-5 2022 160 pages
Faraway
A Novel Lo Yi-Chin Translated by Jeremy Tiang
In the Taiwanese writer Lo Yi-Chin’s Faraway, a fictionalized version of the author finds himself stranded in mainland China attempting to bring his comatose father home. Lo offers a deft portrayal of the rift between China and Taiwan through an intimate view of a father-son relationship that bridges this divide.
$25.00 / £22.00 paper 978-0-231-19395-5 $100.00 / £78.00 cloth 978-0-231-19394-8 2021 328 pages
MODERN CHINESE LITERATURE FROM TAIWAN
Suncranes and Other Stories
Modern Mongolian Short Fiction Translated by Simon Wickhamsmith The Fragrant Companions
A Play About Love Between Women Li Yu Translated by Stephen Roddy and Ying Wang
Suncranes and Other Stories showcases a range of powerful voices from Mongolia’s modern literary traditions. Spanning the years following the socialist revolution of 1921 through the early twenty-first century, these stories offer vivid portraits of nomads, revolution, and the endless steppe.
$25.00 / £20.00 paper 978-0-231-19677-2 $95.00 / £74.00 cloth 978-0-231-19676-5 2021 296 pages The Fragrant Companions is the most significant work of literature that portrays female same-sex love in the entire premodern Chinese tradition. It is at once an unconventional romantic comedy, a barbed satire, and a sympathetic portrayal of love between women.
$30.00 / £25.00 paper 978-0-231-20629-7 $120.00 /£94.00 cloth 978-0-231-20628-0 July 2022 256 pages
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ASIAN CLASSICS
Samak the Ayyar
A Tale of Ancient Persia Translated by Freydoon Rassouli
Adapted by Jordan Mechner
A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On
Dung Kai-cheung Translated by Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson
The adventures of Samak, a trickster-warrior hero of Persia’s thousand-year-old oral storytelling tradition, are beloved in Iran. Translated from the original Persian by Freydoon Rassouli and adapted by Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner, this timeless masterwork can now be enjoyed by Englishspeaking readers.
$28.00 / £22.00 paper 978-0-231-19879-0 $120.00 / £94.00 cloth 978-0-231-19878-3 2021 464 pages Dung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is a playful and imaginative glimpse into the consumerist dreamscape of latenineties Hong Kong. It comprises ninety-nine sketches of life just after the handover of the former British colony to China. A major work from one of Hong Kong’s most gifted and original writers, Dung’s archaeology of the end of the twentieth century speaks to perennial questions about consumerism, nostalgia, and identity.
$28.00 / £22.00 paper 978-0-231-20543-6 $115.00 / £90.00 cloth 978-0-231-20542-9 June 2022 400 pages
