Julia Lovell's fluent translation deftly reproduces Zhu Wen's wry sense of humor and powerful command of detail and atmosphere. The novella's loose, colloquial voice and sharp focus on the indignity and iniquity of a society trapped between communism and capitalism showcase Zhu Wen's exceptional ability to make literary sense of the bizarre, ideologically confused amalgam that is contemporary China. For example, I Love Dollars, a story about casual sex in a provincial city whose caustic portrayal of numb disillusionment and cynicism, caused an immediate sensation in the Chinese literary establishment when it was first published. With subjects ranging from provincial mafiosi to nightmarish families and oppressed factory workers, his claustrophobic narratives depict a spiritually bankrupt society, periodically rocked by spasms of uncontrolled violence. Set against the mundane landscapes of contemporary China-a worn Yangtze River vessel, cheap diners, a failing factory, a for-profit hospital operating by dated socialist norms-Zhu Wen's stories zoom in on the often tragicomic minutiae of everyday life in this fast-changing country. A frank reflection of the seamier side of his nation's increasingly capitalist society, Zhu Wen's fiction offers an audaciously plainspoken account of the often hedonistic individualism that is feverishly taking root. Brito's narrators and characters are freetalkers and freethinkers with strikingly singular perspectives.In five richly imaginative novellas and a short story, Zhu Wen depicts the violence, chaos, and dark comedy of China in the post-Mao era. a collection that is sometimes funny and always highly original. She was working on a second collection at the time her death.įull of wry humour and startling originality, this collection features some of Brito’s most acclaimed stories, including ‘Mama’s Baby (Papa’s Maybe)’, ‘The Last Jumpshot’, and ‘Dat’s Love’, which won the 1991 Rhys Davies Short Story Prize. They are unique in Welsh fiction in that they present an insider’s perspective on a Black history and culture of Wales only alluded to by other writers.

Her stories are full of light and life, and the descriptions are marked by an unusual exactness and sense of place. She was the first of a group of writers who heralded a feminist renaissance in short story writing in Wales. Brito’s stories engage primarily with the Cardiff of her youth, most notably the Docks and Tiger Bay.

First love and other stories