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Book Cover for: Hunter, Shuang Xuetao

Hunter

Shuang Xuetao

Critic Reviews

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Based on 3 reviews on

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A provincial ambulance drives through the night in search of a hospital, a fifth-rate actor goes method as a hitman on a sweltering rooftop, a legendary knife fighter is found working on the factory floor of a northern village.

Hunter's stories of deceptive, brutal realism play with myth and history, offering a vision of ordinary life in China with a magic realist turn.

Filled with dark humor and written with a tinge of noir, these fictions grapple with the realities of contemporary China, and show why Shuang Xuetao is the most highly-celebrated young writer working in the country today.


Granta Magazine Editions is a paperback original series of exceptional literary voices published by Granta magazine.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Granta Magazine Editions
  • Publish Date: Jul 1st, 2025
  • Pages: 256
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.70in - 5.00in - 1.20in - 0.65lb
  • EAN: 9781738536245
  • Categories: Fantasy - ContemporaryWorld Literature - China - GeneralMagical Realism

About the Author

Xuetao, Shuang: - Shuang Xuetao was born in 1983 in
Shenyang. Shuang has written six volumes of fiction, for which he has
won the Blossoms Literary Prize, the Wang Zengqi Short Story Prize, and
the Blancpain-Imaginist Award for best Chinese writer under forty-five.
His short fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Astra Magazine and Brick, and a novella collection, Rouge Street, was published in English in 2022. His short stories and novellas have seen major adaptations for television and film.
Tiang, Jeremy: - Jeremy Tiang is a novelist, playwright and
literary translator. He has translated over thirty books from across
the Chinese-speaking world, including novels by Yeng Pway Ngon, Yan Ge,
Lo Yi-Chin, Liu Xinwu and Zhang Yueran. Most recently, his translation
of Zou Jingzhi's Ninth Building was longlisted for the
International Booker Prize 2023. He has been a translator-in-residence
at Princeton University and the University of Iowa, and chaired the jury
for the National Book Award in Translated Literature.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"One of China's most celebrated young authors . . . he has been hailed for bringing attention to a time and people that China's public imagination had long written off." - New York Times
"Shuang Xuetao offers an unsparing portrait of life in China's industrial north-east. The Dongbei renaissance draws attention to places left behind by the nation's rise but also points to demand for honest, nuanced accounts of the real China." - The Economist
"In sparse, vernacular prose, Shuang uses fabulist noir to evoke the pace of social change . . . Shuang's multi-voiced narratives both challenge and confirm that maxim, conveying the contested legacies of recent Chinese history." - The New Yorker