Running Through Beijing
Running Through Beijing presents three interlinked stories of Beijing’s migrant youth. Without registration documents or fixed employment, they have to live off their wits selling pirated DVDs and fake IDs. The city’s dusty boulevards and cramped flats provide the backdrop to three stories of hope, love and struggle, giving a vivid portrait of the city’s “floating” population.
It is an exciting and accomplished collection of novellas that brings to life the anxiety and loneliness of Beijing’s migrant underclass, reflected in Xu Zechen's tight sentences and an attention to his craft rare among his contemporaries. His profound understanding of the human condition creates a world at once extremely evocative of Beijing’s rough, sand-swept streets, and yet universal in its emotional power.
Three novellas in collection: Xi Xia, Ah Beijing, and Running Through Beijing
