We always appreciate contemporary Chinese literature, especially in such a modern, fresh version. So we were very happy to come across this book.
Land of Big Numbers is debut of journalist Te-Ping Chen. There’s something of Yiyun Li’s Tysiąc lat dobrych modlitw (A Thousand Years of Good Prayers), and that is a great recommendation. It offers a wide outlook on China, but also a very personal and equally interesting look at emigration. The collection, as it happens with short-form anthologies, is uneven, but it has many outstanding texts that you will remember for a really long time.
For example, the opening story, “Lulu”. It follows the story of twin siblings whose lives suddenly begin to take a different course than the one their parents hoped for. Unexpectedly, it’s Lulu, the only one in the family who was supposed to graduate from college in a big city, who begins to engage in subversive activities on the Internet and turns from the family’s top student to a public enemy. Surprising and engaging, this is undoubtedly one of the best stories I’ve had the opportunity to read this year.
In another short story, a girl who works at a city hotline receives a threatening phone call from an old boyfriend; elsewhere, travellers trapped on a train platform somewhere in China establish an orderly community.
Land of Big Numbers is a great portrait of modern China and its society, both in the land of big numbers and beyond – Te-Ping Chen is an author worth having on your radar.
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