Yan Ge – författare

LONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE'Wonderful writing.' SARAH HALL'Dazzlingly good.' DANIELLE McLAUGHLIN 'Precise, surreal and emotionally devastating' LUCY CALDWELL'How do you know this is all real and happening? How can you be sure you haven't already died in the earthquake and are just living in the afterlife?'In her highly anticipated English-language debut, Yan Ge explores isolation in nine iridescent, witty and wondrous tales. Both contemporary and ancient, real and surreal, the stories in Elsewhere range from China to Dublin to London and Stockholm.From a group of writers lounging on the edge of a disaster zone to a mandarin ostracised from his old court trying to avoid assassination, and from a woman who inexplicably loses her voice to a couple who meet all too fleetingly at a cinema in Dublin, these are strange and beguiling stories of dispossession, longing and the diasporic experience.'Glorious' MIA GALLAGHER'Gripping, stunning, worldly and otherworldly.' MADELEINE THIEN'Equal parts shimmering wit and startling emotional depth.' JEREMY TIAN'One of the most surprising writers I've read in recent years. . . fantastic.' MATT BELL

**AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW**LONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE'Full of depth. . . wonderful writing.' SARAH HALL'Dazzlingly good. . . crackling with playfulness and intelligence.' DANIELLE McLAUGHLIN 'Precise, surreal and emotionally devastating' LUCY CALDWELL'How do you know this is all real and happening? How can you be sure you haven't already died in the earthquake and are just living in the afterlife?'In her highly anticipated English-language debut, Yan Ge explores isolation in nine iridescent, witty and wondrous tales. Both contemporary and ancient, real and surreal, the stories in Elsewhere range from China to Dublin to London and Stockholm.From a group of writers lounging on the edge of a disaster zone to a mandarin ostracised from his old court trying to avoid assassination, and from a woman who inexplicably loses her voice to a couple who meet all too fleetingly at a cinema in Dublin, these are strange and beguiling stories of dispossession, longing and the diasporic experience.'Glorious' MIA GALLAGHER'A gripping, stunning work, worldly and otherworldly.' MADELEINE THIEN'Equal parts shimmering wit and startling emotional depth.' JEREMY TIAN'One of the most surprising writers I've read in recent years. . . fantastic.' MATT BELL

LONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE'Wonderful writing.' SARAH HALL'Dazzlingly good.' DANIELLE McLAUGHLIN 'Precise, surreal and emotionally devastating' LUCY CALDWELL'How do you know this is all real and happening? How can you be sure you haven't already died in the earthquake and are just living in the afterlife?'In her highly anticipated English-language debut, Yan Ge explores isolation in nine iridescent, witty and wondrous tales. Both contemporary and ancient, real and surreal, the stories in Elsewhere range from China to Dublin to London and Stockholm.From a group of writers lounging on the edge of a disaster zone to a mandarin ostracised from his old court trying to avoid assassination, and from a woman who inexplicably loses her voice to a couple who meet all too fleetingly at a cinema in Dublin, these are strange and beguiling stories of dispossession, longing and the diasporic experience.'Glorious' MIA GALLAGHER'Gripping, stunning, worldly and otherworldly.' MADELEINE THIEN'Equal parts shimmering wit and startling emotional depth.' JEREMY TIAN'One of the most surprising writers I've read in recent years. . . fantastic.' MATT BELL

Longlisted for THE STORY PRIZE | A New Yorker BEST BOOK of 2023 | MOST ANTICIPATED by Nylon • Rolling Stone • The Millions From multi-award-winning author Yan Ge, a shimmering, genre-bending English-language debut that announces the next phase in a major literary career. “As haunting, dreamlike, and addictive as a melatonin-induced slumber.” —Nylon “Deft... Elsewhere [explores] the power of language across the Chinese diaspora to either bring people together or push them apart.”—The New York TimesIn twenty years, Yan Ge has authored thirteen books written in Chinese, working across an impressive range of genres and subjects. Now, Yan Ge transposes her dynamic storytelling onto another linguistic landscape. The result is a collection humming with her trademark wit and style—and with the electricity of a seasoned artist flexing her virtuosity with a new medium. A young woman bonds with an encampment of poets after a devastating earthquake. Against her better judgment, a college student begins to fall for an acquaintance who might be dead. And a Confucian disciple returns to the Master bearing a jar full of grisly remains. Weaving between reality and dreamy surreality, these nine stories wend toward elsewhere, a comforting, frustrating, just-out-of-reach place familiar to anyone who has ever experienced longing. Through it all Yan Ge’s protagonists peer thoughtfully at their own feelings of displacement—physical or emotional, the result of travel, emigration, or exile. Brilliant and irresistibly readable, Elsewhere explores the utility (or not) of art in the face of lonesomeness, quotidian, and spectacular. This highly anticipated collection is further proof that Yan Ge is a generational literary talent, to be watched closely for decades to come.

A gripping psychological tale, enlivened by wickedly sharp insights into contemporary small-town life. Yun Yun lives in a small West China town with her widowed father, and an uncle, aunt and older cousin who live nearby. Then, her once-secure world falls apart. Through her eyes, we observe her cousin, Zhang Qing keen to dive into the excitements of adolescence but clashes with repressive parents. Ensuing tensions reveal that the relationships between the two families are founded on a terrible lie.

In the city of Yong''an, a fiction writer and amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures, with their greenish stomachs or gills or strange birthmarks, live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness, some with ancient forbears, others engineered as artificial breeds.Guided – and often misguided – by her elusive university professor and his scrappy sidekick-student Zhong Liang, our narrator finds herself on a mission to track down each species. And as she blunders from one implausible situation to the next, she comes one step closer to revealing her own multifaceted beastliness…Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China addresses existential questions of identity, being, love and morality with whimsy and grace.

Longlisted for THE STORY PRIZE | A New Yorker BEST BOOK of 2023 | MOST ANTICIPATED by Nylon • Rolling Stone • The Millions From multi-award-winning author Yan Ge, a shimmering, genre-bending English-language debut that announces the next phase in a major literary career. “As haunting, dreamlike, and addictive as a melatonin-induced slumber.” —Nylon “Deft... Elsewhere [explores] the power of language across the Chinese diaspora to either bring people together or push them apart.”—The New York TimesIn twenty years, Yan Ge has authored thirteen books written in Chinese, working across an impressive range of genres and subjects. Now, Yan Ge transposes her dynamic storytelling onto another linguistic landscape. The result is a collection humming with her trademark wit and style—and with the electricity of a seasoned artist flexing her virtuosity with a new medium. A young woman bonds with an encampment of poets after a devastating earthquake. Against her better judgment, a college student begins to fall for an acquaintance who might be dead. And a Confucian disciple returns to the Master bearing a jar full of grisly remains. Weaving between reality and dreamy surreality, these nine stories wend toward elsewhere, a comforting, frustrating, just-out-of-reach place familiar to anyone who has ever experienced longing. Through it all Yan Ge’s protagonists peer thoughtfully at their own feelings of displacement—physical or emotional, the result of travel, emigration, or exile. Brilliant and irresistibly readable, Elsewhere explores the utility (or not) of art in the face of lonesomeness, quotidian, and spectacular. This highly anticipated collection is further proof that Yan Ge is a generational literary talent, to be watched closely for decades to come.