My Review of Liu Xinwu’s The Wedding Party

Posted: January 12th, 2022 | No Comments »

I reviewed Liu Xinwu’s The Wedding Party for the South China Morning Post (here)…

“Like a Dickens or Dostoevsky novel, tale of Beijing hutong life The Wedding Party, by Liu Xinwu, conceals drama and trauma beneath the seemingly inconsequential…

In a Beijing alleyway community Auntie Xue is preparing a wedding celebration for her son. Outside the hutong, China is changing in Deng Xiaoping’s reform era…

So begins Liu Xinwu’s newly translated 1984 novel, in which, as in tales by Dickens and Dostoevsky, jealousies and resentments swirl beneath a mundane surface.”

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