Flock of Brown Birds: Penguin Specials

In this avant garde novella, memory and time are subjective. A writer named Ge Fei retreats to the beautiful solitude of the Waterside to finish his novel inspired by the Revelations of St. John. He perceives ominous and portentous signs in the natural landscape around him, particularly in a flock of brown birds that flies periodically past his window. The arrival of a mysterious woman named Qi magnifies his anxiety and sense of temporal disorientation, calling into question his grasp on reality. 'It is impossible to enter the deeper aspects of contemporary Chinese literature without also entering the world of Ge Fei.' Enrique Vila-Matas