I Love Bill and Other Stories showcases the work of Wang Anyi, one of China's most prolific and highly regarded writers, in two novellas and three short stories. A young artist's life spirals out of control when she drops out of school to pursue a series of unfulfilling relationships with foreign men. A performance troupe struggles to adapt to a changing China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. The head of an isolated village arranges a youth's posthumous marriage to an unknown soldier, only to have the soldier's former lover unexpectedly turn up. A fun trip takes an unexpected turn when two young women are kidnapped and sold off as brides. A boy's bout with typhoid provides an intimate look at family life in Shanghai's longtang alleys. In this thoughtful translation by Todd Foley, I Love Bill and Other Stories offers poignant and nuanced portrayals of life during China's economic and cultural transition at the turn of the millennium.

I Love Bill and Other Stories showcases the work of Wang Anyi, one of China's most prolific and highly regarded writers, in two novellas and three short stories. A young artist's life spirals out of control when she drops out of school to pursue a series of unfulfilling relationships with foreign men. A performance troupe struggles to adapt to a changing China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. The head of an isolated village arranges a youth's posthumous marriage to an unknown soldier, only to have the soldier's former lover unexpectedly turn up. A fun trip takes an unexpected turn when two young women are kidnapped and sold off as brides. A boy's bout with typhoid provides an intimate look at family life in Shanghai's longtang alleys. In this thoughtful translation by Todd Foley, I Love Bill and Other Stories offers poignant and nuanced portrayals of life during China's economic and cultural transition at the turn of the millennium.

Nainai has lived in Shanghai for many years, and the time has come to find a wife for her adopted grandson. But when the bride she has chosen arrives from the countryside, it soon becomes clear that the orphaned girl has ideas of her own. Her name is Fu Ping, and the more she explores the residential lanes and courtyards behind Shanghai's busy shopping streets, the less she wants to return to the country as a dutiful wife. As Fu Ping wavers over her future, she learns the city through the stories of the nannies, handymen, and garbage collectors whose labor is bringing life and bustle back to postwar Shanghai. Fu Ping is a keenly observed portrait of the lives of lower-class women in Shanghai in the early years of the People's Republic of China. Wang Anyi, one of contemporary China's most acclaimed authors, explores the daily lives of migrants from rural areas and other people on the margins of urban life. In shifting perspectives rich in detail and psychological insight, she sketches their aspirations, their fears, and the subtle ties that bind them together. In Howard Goldblatt's masterful translation, Fu Ping reveals Wang Anyi's precise renderings of history, class, and the human heart.

Set in post-World War II Shanghai, "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" follows the adventures of Wang Qiyao, a girl born of the "longtong," the crowded, labyrinthine alleys of Shanghai's working-class neighborhoods.

Infatuated with the glitz and glamour of 1940s Hollywood, Wang Qiyao seeks fame in the Miss Shanghai beauty pageant, and this fleeting moment of stardom becomes the pinnacle of her life. During the next four decades, Wang Qiyao indulges in the decadent pleasures of pre-liberation Shanghai, secretly playing mahjong during the antirightist Movement and exchanging lovers on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Surviving the vicissitudes of modern Chinese history, Wang Qiyao emerges in the 1980s as a purveyor of "old Shanghai"--a living incarnation of a new, commodified nostalgia that prizes splendor and sophistication--only to become embroiled in a tragedy that echoes the pulpy Hollywood noirs of her youth.

From the violent persecution of communism to the liberalism and openness of the age of reform, this sorrowful tale of old China versus new, of perseverance in the face of adversity, is a timeless rendering of our never-ending quest for transformation and beauty.

Nainai has lived in Shanghai for many years, and the time has come to find a wife for her adopted grandson. But when the bride she has chosen arrives from the countryside, it soon becomes clear that the orphaned girl has ideas of her own. Her name is Fu Ping, and the more she explores the residential lanes and courtyards behind Shanghai's busy shopping streets, the less she wants to return to the country as a dutiful wife. As Fu Ping wavers over her future, she learns the city through the stories of the nannies, handymen, and garbage collectors whose labor is bringing life and bustle back to postwar Shanghai. Fu Ping is a keenly observed portrait of the lives of lower-class women in Shanghai in the early years of the People's Republic of China. Wang Anyi, one of contemporary China's most acclaimed authors, explores the daily lives of migrants from rural areas and other people on the margins of urban life. In shifting perspectives rich in detail and psychological insight, she sketches their aspirations, their fears, and the subtle ties that bind them together. In Howard Goldblatt's masterful translation, Fu Ping reveals Wang Anyi's precise renderings of history, class, and the human heart.

This anthology focuses on autobiographical works by Wang Anyi, the most prolific and critically acclaimed woman writer in contemporary China, highlighting a personal and emotional dimension of her writing that is essential to a deeper understanding of her creativity and productivity. The three pieces selected for this volume-"A Woman Writer's Sense of Self," "Utopian Verses," and "Years of Sadness"-explore some of the most fundamental and complex issues concerning Wang's identity as a woman and as a writer in early post-socialist China, the creative and emotional challenges she faced during her sojourn in the United States in the early 1980s, and her memories of adolescent years, a period of obsession, uncertainty, and loneliness during the Cultural Revolution.

This anthology focuses on autobiographical works by Wang Anyi, the most prolific and critically acclaimed woman writer in contemporary China, highlighting a personal and emotional dimension of her writing that is essential to a deeper understanding of her creativity and productivity. The three pieces selected for this volume-"A Woman Writer's Sense of Self," "Utopian Verses," and "Years of Sadness"-explore some of the most fundamental and complex issues concerning Wang's identity as a woman and as a writer in early post-socialist China, the creative and emotional challenges she faced during her sojourn in the United States in the early 1980s, and her memories of adolescent years, a period of obsession, uncertainty, and loneliness during the Cultural Revolution.

Set in post-World War II Shanghai, "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" follows the adventures of Wang Qiyao, a girl born of the "longtong," the crowded, labyrinthine alleys of Shanghai's working-class neighborhoods.

Infatuated with the glitz and glamour of 1940s Hollywood, Wang Qiyao seeks fame in the Miss Shanghai beauty pageant, and this fleeting moment of stardom becomes the pinnacle of her life. During the next four decades, Wang Qiyao indulges in the decadent pleasures of pre-liberation Shanghai, secretly playing mahjong during the antirightist Movement and exchanging lovers on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Surviving the vicissitudes of modern Chinese history, Wang Qiyao emerges in the 1980s as a purveyor of "old Shanghai"--a living incarnation of a new, commodified nostalgia that prizes splendor and sophistication--only to become embroiled in a tragedy that echoes the pulpy Hollywood noirs of her youth.

From the violent persecution of communism to the liberalism and openness of the age of reform, this sorrowful tale of old China versus new, of perseverance in the face of adversity, is a timeless rendering of our never-ending quest for transformation and beauty.