Dollars are harder than Chinese yuan (Han Dong)

Author: Han Dong / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Han Dong is known for his poetry and long novels, but his short novels are also considered outstanding works in contemporary Chinese literature. This book is a collection of short novels, featuring eight short stories. The protagonists in the novels are mostly poets—sensitive, fragile, closed off, and childlike, estranged from life, and without hope for love. The author uses a delicate and profound style to narrate and describe the many aspects of their humble lives, allowing readers to experience the absurd yet real nature of life amidst trivial, boring, and laughable stories. The novels well reflect the author's linguistic talent as a poet, with details that leave one amazed. The book includes seven short novels by Han Dong from 1994 to 2000, featuring both classic works like Cross Running and My Plato, as well as recent creations such as US Dollars Are Harder Than RMB. To avoid a "top-heavy" feel in the collection, the arrangement of the stories follows a "reverse chronology"—the exact opposite of the order in which they were written. As Han Dong himself put it, "This is because my later short novels are shorter in length and have a clear advantage in readability, so they were placed at the beginning."