Reading the City - The Book of Beijing

Two former college friends run into each other on the morning train and find themselves reflecting on the very different paths their lives have taken... A counterfeiter, forever living outside the law, starts to envy a friend who’s managed to get out of the game and establish a normal life... A security officer in a futuristic version of Beijing West Railway Station chases down a passenger who the screens say is ‘intentionally lost’... Beijing may be known to us, in the West, as the political powerhouse of the most populous country in the world, but to the characters in these stories it is a protean city, forever changing, evasive and difficult to read... It turns close friends into strangers, up-ends carefully thought-out life choices, and leaves next-door neighbours completely unaware of each other’s true identity. The stories collected in this anthology show people in all contexts – from wannabe protestors to future users of facial expression reading tech – desperate to stake their name on the city, as well as surprised by it at every turn. Featuring translations by Eric Abrahamsen, Paul Harris, Jack Hargreaves, Hongyu Jasmine Zhu, Christopher MacDonald, Carson Ramsdell, Florence Taylor, Alison Sharpless, Katherine Tse, and Helen Wang.