Description
A brother competes for gaming glory while his twin sister exposes the dark side of the Communist government on her underground blog; a worker at a government call centre is alarmed one day to find herself speaking to a former lover; a delicious new fruit arrives at the neighbourhood market and the locals find it starts to affect their lives in ways they could never have imagined; and a young woman’s dreams of making it big in Shanghai are stalled when she finds herself working as a florist.
These are just some of the myriad lives to be evoked in The Land of Big Numbers, a collection of stories which – sometimes playfully, sometimes darkly – draws back the curtain on the realities of modern China and unveils a cast of characters as rich and complicated as any in world literature. With virtuosic brilliance, Te-ping Chen sheds light on a country much talked about but little understood and announces the birth of a bright new star in the literary firmament.
Book Review: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/06/964567998/a-journalists-eye-enlivens-land-of-big-numbers
