Wang Xiaobo

Like Gary Shteyngart or Michel Houellebecq, Wang Xiaobo is a Chinese literary icon whose satire forces us to reconsider the ironies of history. “Apparently, there was a rumour that Chen Qingyang and I were having an affair. She wanted me to prove our innocence. I said, to prove our innocence, we must prove one of the following: 1. Chen Qingyang is a virgin; 2. I was born without a penis. Both of these propositions were hard to prove, therefore, we couldn’t prove our innocence. Infact, I was leaning more toward proving that we weren’t innocent.” And so begins Wang Er’s story of his long affair with Chen Qinyang. Wang Er, a 21-year-old ox herder, is shamed by the local authorities and forced to write a confession for his crimes but instead, takes it upon himself to write a modernist literary tract. Later, as a lecturer at a chaotic, newly built university, Wang Er navigates the bureaucratic maze of 1980’s China, boldly writing about the Cultural Revolution’s impact on his life and those around him. Finally, alone and humbled, Wang Er must come to terms with the banality of his own existence. But what makes this novel both hilarious and important is Xiaobo’s use of the awkwardness of sex as a metaphor for all that occured during the Cultural Revolution. This achievement was revolutionary in China and places Golden Age in the great pantheon of novels that argue against governmental control. A leading icon of his generation, Wang Xiaobo’s cerebral and sarcastic narrative is a reflectionon the failures of individuals and the enormous political, social, and personal changes in 20thcentury China.

A Novel

Golden Age

The Pleasure of Thinking

The first English translation of work by Wang Xiaobo, one of the most important writers of twentieth-century China.

Three Novellas by Wang Xiaobo

Wang in Love and Bondage

A yet-untranslated essay collection on the importance of critical thought, from one of the foremost Chinese intellectuals of the 1990s. Wang Xiaobo’s Pleasure of Thinking is an essay collection as riotous as it is contemplative. Between rollicking anecdotes about living between the East and West and serious musings on the intellectual situations at home and abroad, Xiaobo examines modern life with the levity missing from so much of today’s politico-cultural discourse. In “The Maverick Pig,” he considers the existential differences between humans and livestock. In “Tales From Abroad: Food,” he recounts the culture shock of discovering American diets while studying at Carnegie Mellon. Several pieces focus on literature, with notable essays devoted to Italo Calvino, Bertrand Russell, and Ernest Hemingway, whom Xiaobo admired greatly. Others are more personal in nature, ranging from a meditation on getting mugged, to the consideration of the question: why do I write? Controversial, hilarious, and inimitable, Pleasure of Thinking is a delightful celebration of Wang Xiaobo’s unique critical perspective.

Wang Xiaobo

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