Can Xue, Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping speak to us about the International Booker Prize-longlisted 2021 novel, I Live in the Slums.
I Live in the Slums
Written by Can Xue
Translated by Karen Gernant, Chen Zeping
- Original language:
- Chinese
- Longlisted
- The International Booker Prize 2021
- Published by Yale University Press
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Can Xue’s enchanting collection is full of mystery and secrets, 16 dreamlike stories that create their own uniquely beautiful reality
I Live in the Slums combines elements of both Chinese materiality - the love of physical things - and Western abstract thinking. With this collection, Can Xue has created an immersive landscape that blends empirical fact and illusion, mixes the physical and spiritual, and probes the space between consciousness and unconsciousness. The stories bring readers to a place that is both readily familiar yet unmappable, highlighting the inherent unreliability in our relationship to the world around us.
Karen Gernant
I Live in the Slums is the fifth book by Can Xue translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping
More about Karen Gernant 
Chen Zeping
Chen Zeping was professor emeritus of Chinese linguistics at Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
More about Chen Zeping Other nominated books by Can Xue
Can Xue’s ambitious, dreamlike novel examines the nebulous, perplexing and unfathomable nature of love in China in the 21st century
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