Points of Origin by Diao Dou
A letter-writing campaign by a group of bumptious, socially concerned intellectuals to the local government triggers an unforeseen chain of events, when a new bye-law decrees that everyone on the streets after dusk can only move around in a squatting position. A grad student's girlfriend develops a fascination with her advisor's personal history, but as the narrator's obsession with her obsession deepens, all is not as it seems, and the ladder of the story is kicked away by the author. A man begins to fixate on the idea that his new-born infant was actually fathered by his younger brother; as the idea takes hold, the world forms itself into a surreal and hostile place, where everyone is in on the conspiracy (including the baby). Diao Dou's short stories inhabit the distances that exist between his characters' interior landscapes and public facades. Sharp, witty, often bitingly satirical (critiquing regional and national politics and local cultural values), Diao Dou's fiction is rich with literary allusion and inter-textuality.
'Diao Dou's stories brim with surreal and caustic humorHis characters inhabit a pitch-black world, where horror blends with absurdist comedy, and all that ordinary people can do is learn how to 'eat bitter'. Brendan O'Kane renders Diao's biting satire in clean sharp prose, for the first time giving English speaking readers the chance to encounter a writer who excavates something surreal and unmoored at the heart of contemporary China.' - Hari Kunzru; 'Diverse short stories showcase a dark imagination' - The Guardian
Diao Dou was born in 1960 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China. Since graduating from the Beijing Broadcasting Institute in 1983, he has worked as a journalist and latterly as a literary editor. Although his first book was a collection of poetry, Aiqing jishi ('Chronicles of Love', 1992), he is best known as an author of novels and short stories. His five novels are Siren dang'an ('Personal File', 1998), Zhengci ('Testimony', 1999), Youxifa ('Playing the Game', 2002), Wo ge Diao Bei nianbiao ('My Brother, Diao Bei: A History', 2008) and Qinhe ('Close to You', 2011). He has also published five collections of short stories: Duzi shangsheng ('Ascending Alone', 1996), Shaizi yi zhi ('A Roll of the Dice', 1996), Shijishang shi hujiu ('A Cry for Help', 2006), Qingshu kao ('Love Letters: A Study', 2014) and Chuchu ('Points of Origin', forthcoming). He has also published one collection of essays, Yi ge xiaoshuojia de shenghuo yu xiangxiang ('The Life and Imagination of a Novelist', 2012). Diao Dou is wildly regarded as one of China's leading satirists, praised for his refusal to follow any of the numerous literary trends that often dominate the Chinese literary scene. In 2003, he was awarded the ninth annual Zhuang Zhongwen Prize for Literature. Points of Origin is the first appearance of his collected works in English.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781905583621 |
| ISBN 10 | 1905583621 |
| Title | Points of Origin |
| Author | Diao Dou |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Comma Press |
| Year published | 2015-09-30 |
| Number of pages | 242 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |