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A Star in the Book of Liars

Justin Taylor

‘When Jean was nearly seventeen years old, she instigated an affair with a house painter in his early forties who played drums in a Beatles cover band.’

Fiction by Justin Taylor.

Flesh

David Szalay

‘She kneels on the floor and takes it in her mouth again. He’s looking at the top of her head, at the roots of her hair where the blonde, he now sees, is slightly mixed with grey.’

Fiction by David Szalay.

Four Poems

Hu Xudong

‘That shiny / black tooth exuding the indisputable / urgency of the bite’

Four poems by Hu Xudong, translated by Margaret Ross.

The Suffering of Presence and Absence

Leslie Shang Zhefeng

‘Many of these residents are unable to afford life in Shanghai and refer to themselves as “the living dead”.’

Leslie Shang Zhefeng photographs vacant apartments and the people who have made them their homes.

In Her Room

Wang Anyi

‘It would be wrong to say she hasn’t experienced life. Instead, it would be more apt to describe her as someone whom time has slipped by without leaving the slightest trace.’

Fiction by Wang Anyi, translated by Michael Berry.

Images of Women

Elvira Navarro

‘In the years before his stroke, just how many times had her father told a woman he loved her after dating for two or three weeks?’

Fiction by Elvira Navarro, translated by Christina MacSweeney.

International Soul Cultist

Toye Oladinni

‘They started out as fraternities, the cults. Poorer students wanted strong networks, like the ones boarding school pupils had already.’

Fiction by Toye Oladinni.

Podcast | Wang Xiaoshuai

Wang Xiaoshuai

‘It’s more like painting. It’s not like a film.’

Wang Xiaoshuai on the evolution of Chinese cinema and the challenges faced by those working at the vanguard of independent film.

Two Poems

Yu Xiang

‘a centipede devours a grand piano, so / ten thousand fingers / devour Bach’

Poetry by Yu Xiang, translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain.

Ancestors

Ekhmetjan Osman

‘A cold star breeze, you pass through my eyelashes.’

A poem by Ekhmetjan Osman translated by Joshua L. Freeman.

The Translator

Tahir Hamut Izgil

‘I might walk endlessly’

A poem by Tahir Hamut Izgil, translated by Joshua L. Freeman.

Spam for President

Harryette Mullen

‘My voice may grate your nerves again.’

A poem by Harryette Mullen.

Friends

Jia Pingwa

‘Your friends might never know you intimately. There are those that will know you intimately but never be your friend.’

Jia Pingwa on friendship.

Ocean Hotpot

Si’an Chen

‘I promise you, the committee only looks at two things: how feasible a proposal is, and what it could actually do for the environment.’

A bureaucrat and an entrepreneur discuss environment-saving proposals in a short play by Si’an Chen, translated by Jeremy Tiang.