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Doing the Work

Junot Díaz

‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’

Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.

Working Girls

A. Jiang

‘I tried to work out how many elements I would have plugged if I retired at sixty, and soon I was fatigued before a simple subtraction.’

Fiction by A. Jiang.

Piranhas and Us

Can Xue

‘An enormous black form rose from the water. Uncle Feng told me in a low voice to run fast.’

Fiction by Can Xue, translated by Annelise Finegan.

China Time

Thomas Meaney

‘At a time when China has become a unifying specter of menace for Western governments, this issue of Granta brings the country’s literary culture into focus.’

The editor introduces the issue.

Speedwell

Zhang Yueran

‘Fiction is a kind of spell, I said, and analysing a story is an exorcism. It loses all its mystery.’

Fiction by Zhang Yueran, translated by Jeremy Tiang.

Hunter

Shuang Xuetao

‘Lu Dong is a fifth-rate actor – that’s by his own ranking system.’

Fiction by Shuang Xuetao, translated by Jeremy Tiang.

White Night

Feng Li

‘For more than twenty years, photographer Feng Li has been documenting the people and backdrops of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, and one of the fastest growing cities on earth.’

Photography by Feng Li, introduced by Granta.

The Excitements of Spring

Zou Jingzhi

‘As a young man, I wanted to learn how to love, but in the end, I did nothing. I wanted to torture myself, but didn’t know where to begin.’

Fiction by Zou Jingzhi, translated by Jeremy Tiang.

Picun

Han Zhang

‘The stories being written by Picun writers and their peers show the effort and the ingenuity required to survive as migrant workers, builders of the economic miracle.’

Han Zhang on the New Workers’ Literature Group of Picun.

The Piranhas

Jianan Qian

‘In the end, the real world always finds a way to live up to rumor.’

Fiction by Jianan Qian, translated by Jianan Qian and Alyssa Asquith.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Ban Yu

‘It was a special time in Shenyang’s history – everyone was enthusiastic about football, and every company had a football fan club.’

Fiction by Ban Yu, translated by Tony Hao.

Shot in the 1960s, Printed Yesterday

Haohui Liu

‘It is rare to see photos of Daqing from the 1960s that are not part of the official feting of the oil boom.’

Photography by Haoihui Liu, introduced by Granta.

Adrift in the South

Xiao Hai

Finally! I thought. Now I get to work in a big factory. I was fifteen and a half years old. I was a child laborer.’

Xiao Hai on coming of age in the factories of Shenzhen, translated by Tony Hao.

Hai Shan Swimming Pool

Yang Zhihan

‘As soon as I turned the corner, I saw her. She was swimming across the blue sea, the only person in the entire swimming pool.’

Fiction by Yang Zhihan, translated by Helen Wang.