Can Xue, Chen Zeping and Karen Gernant on I Live in the Slums
Can Xue, Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping speak to us about the International Booker Prize-longlisted 2021 novel, I Live in the Slums.
Can Xue’s enchanting collection is full of mystery and secrets, 16 dreamlike stories that create their own uniquely beautiful reality. Translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.
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.
Can Xue
About the Author
Can Xue is the pseudonym of the renowned avant‑garde author Deng Xiaohua.
Karen Gernant
About the Translator
I Live in the Slums is the fifth book by Can Xue translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.
Chen Zeping
About the Translator
Chen Zeping was professor emeritus of Chinese linguistics at Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China.Other nominated books by Can Xue
Can Xue’s ambitious, dreamlike novel examines the nebulous, perplexing and unfathomable nature of love of China in the 21st century. Translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen.
