An Empty Room

A dazzling cycle of short stories by one of China s most revered contemporary writers and one of the world s leading artist-intellectuals.

An Empty Room is the first book by the celebrated Chinese writer Mu Xin toappear in English. A cycle of thirteen tenderly evocative stories written whileMu Xin was living in exile, this collection is reminiscent of the structural beautyof Hemingway s In Our Time and the imagistic power of Kawabata s palm-of-the-hand stories. From the ordinary (a bus accident) to the unusual (Buddhisthalos) to the wise (Goethe, Lao Zi), Mu Xin s wandering I interweaves plotswith philosophical grace and spiritual profundity. A small blue bowl becomes asymbol of vanishing childhood; a painter in a race against fading memory scribblesnotes in an underground prison during the Cultural Revolution; an abandonedtemple room holds a dark mystery. An Empty Room is a soul-stirringpage turner, a Sebaldian reverie of passing time, loss, and humanity regained.

Mu Xin, born in 1927 in China, is among the last of his generation to receive a classical education. During the Cultural Revolution he was imprisoned for eighteen months and then lived under house arrest for several years. In 1982 he moved to the U.S., where he lived in Queens, New York, and only recently moved back to his hometown in China. He is the author of several collecti...

(展开全部)

Mu Xin, born in 1927 in China, is among the last of his generation to receive a classical education. During the Cultural Revolution he was imprisoned for eighteen months and then lived under house arrest for several years. In 1982 he moved to the U.S., where he lived in Queens, New York, and only recently moved back to his hometown in China. He is the author of several collections of stories, poetry, and essays, as well as being a world-renowned painter.