num_pages: 233
description: A debut collection from an extraordinary new talent that vividly gives voice to the men and women of modern China and its diaspora Gripping and compassionate Land of Big Numbers depicts the diverse and legion Chinese people their history their government and how all of that has tumbledmessily violently but still beautifullyinto the present. Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism Chens stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk high-reward temptations of Chinas volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit trapped for no reason on a subway platform for months waiting for official permission to leave. With acute social insight Te-Ping Chen layers years of experience reporting on the ground in China with incantatory prose in this taut surprising debut proving herself both a remarkable cultural critic and an astonishingly accomplished new literary voice.Lulu --Hotline girl --New fruit --Field notes on a marriage --Flying machine --On the street where you live --Shanghai murmur --Land of big numbers --Beautiful country --Gubeikou spirit
language: English
title: Land of Big Numbers: Stories
publisher: Mariner Books