2005 China Annual Short Story

Author: Yang Xiaomin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features:
- The quick candy seller, Liu (from Feng Jicai's Liu the Quick), who attracts children with magic tricks to buy candy.
- Old Wang is about to implement the bald head project, and his family splits into two factions with differing opinions (from Wang Meng's Bald Head).
- Professor He, known for his studies on Zhuangzi, continued academic research during the Cultural Revolution and moved a suicidal scholar (from Nie Xinsen's Freedom of the Dao).
- Xiao Qin's sketches and woodcuts were turned to ash during a raid, and from then on, he carried all his artworks in his backpack. Unexpectedly, this increasingly heavy backpack saved his life (from Jiang Zilong's Sleeping While Marching).
164 writers and 163 outstanding works, including Wang Zengqi, Feng Jicai, Wang Meng, Nie Xinsen, Sun Chunping, Jiang Zilong, Deng Hongwei, He Liwei, and Jiang Fangzhou. Some works confront life directly, while others return to classical themes. Some are simple and sincere, while others are bright and clear. All are concise and to the point, extracting certain states and meanings of society and life from small slices of life, provoking deep reflection.
Selected and edited by authoritative figures in China's fiction world, this collection of 2005 short stories is curated from millions of words of short fiction published in hundreds of literary journals across the country that year. It aims to review the achievements of short story creation in that year, objectively and fairly selecting the annual short stories that are representative, influential, and excel in both thoughtfulness and artistry.
The works included in this book are: Liu the Quick, Bald Head, Freedom of the Dao, Talking About Poverty, Sleeping While Marching, A Failed Kidnapping, Classical Love, Chen Niqiu, First Love, Tooth Extraction, Felling Trees, Understanding Tragedy, and more.