An iron-willed mother, an ageing grandmother, a pair of mismatched dogs and 90 acres of less-than-ideal farmland: these are Li Juans companions on the steppes of the Gobi Desert. Writing out of a yurt under Xinjiangs endless horizons, she documents her familys quest to extract a bounty of sunflowers amid the harsh beauty and barren expanses of Chinas northwest frontier. Success must be eked out in the face of lifes unnegotiable realities: sandstorms, locusts and death. While this small tribe is held at the mercy of these headwinds, they discover the cheer and dignity hidden in each other. But will their ceaseless labours deliver blooming fields of green and yellow? Or will their dreams prove as distant as they are fragile?

Distant Sunflower Fields

Li Juan and translated by Christopher Payne

Literature & Fiction

ACA Publishing

Memoirs & micro-essays from the master of implication among China’s top writers. It is composed of sanwen, a traditional free prose form. Ranging from boisterous urban sketches to quiet musings on humanity’s strange and secret compulsions, Su Tong pulls back the curtain in a detached style, unafraid to throw the reader an occasional knowing wink.\nBy turns flexible and delicate, taciturn and effusive, this collection of memoirs and micro-essays project in filmic clarity the cool head, dry wit and social conscience that have made Su Tong the ‘master of implication’ among China’s leading writers. Ranging from street-level portraits of a boisterous and rapidly changing nation to quiet musings on humanity’s strange and secret compulsions, Su Tong offers a glimpse behind the curtain into the workings of a keen mind that helped shape the literary and popular culture of modern China.

Open-Air Cinema: Reminiscences and Micro-Essays from the author of Raise the Red Lantern

Biographies & Memoirs

Su, Tong

Nicky Harman

James Trapp

Haiwang Yuan

Olivia Milburn

Arts & Literature

Longevity Park

China is ageing. Its shrinking households, overworked and overstretched, struggle to carry the burden of care for their elderly. Retired Beijing judge Uncle Xiao is one among millions of old\-timers who face a hopeless choice: accept a lonely decline, or chase dubious miracle cures. Then into his life steps Miss Zhong, a young rural nurse with her own share of problems. The two have little in common, but as time delivers tragedies they learn that family can take many forms. Will this unlikely pair weather lifes storms together, and will Xiao find warmth in his sunset years?

Zhou, Daxin

Parenting & Relationships

The Sons of Red Lake

Genre Fiction

1980s, China. Dizzying reforms are sweeping across its Central Plain as the nation is told that to get rich is glorious. Swept up in the hope of a better tomorrow, Li Delin, a brilliant scientist of humble background, and his fellow villager, the flower seller Liu Jinding, share an ambition to rise from their unassuming rural origins. In this new age of excess, few care for the old values. Li’s honest talent and hard graft earn him power in provincial politics, from which Liu extracts his own profitable empire. Neither are ready when they become surrounded by feigned friends selling false assurances. Exploited and betrayed by those he used to confide in, Li’s career is soon enveloped in corruption and tragedy. Attempts at a resolution simply dig him deeper into crisis. As the walls start to close in, who can he count on? He was never prepared for this fight.

Graft

Li Peifu

Contemporary

The Silverwood Detectives: The Brandy Mansion

Humor & Entertainment

Alagon, Asher Campbell

Humor

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