© Columbia University Press
There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night
May, 2009
Cloth, 248 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-14810-8
$26.50
/ £18.50
"Cao examines the often barbaric side of human nature in the face of stark poverty and extreme necessity." — Publishers Weekly
"Swedish Nobel academician Göran Malmqvist wrote that Cao Naiqian was one of three Chinese authors who deserved the Nobel Prize. The best thing about these stories, aside from the realistic depiction of a world none of us wants to visit and few of us can imagine, is their almost lyrical presentation of human poverty, depravity, and occasional comradeship and mutual warmth. An excellent novel; the image of these disposable lives stays with one after reading." — Michael Duke, University of British Columbia
"These stories are dark, they are rural, they are moving, even arresting in places, and they are well translated. Cao Naiqian is a master of this subgenre—an intriguing, honest, and courageous chronicler of life in the 'other China.'" — Howard Goldblatt, University of Notre Dame and coeditor of Loud Sparrows: Contemporary Chinese Short-Shorts
"A superb translation of one of the most important and impressive works in contemporary Chinese literature. John Balcom successfully conveys the mood of this gruesome yet lyrical tale about poor peasants living in a Chinese village several light-years away from the urban centers of mainland China." — Göran Malmqvist, member of the Swedish Academy