Author:Ma Jian,Flora Drew
Every week, a writer of political propaganda and a professional blood donor meet for dinner. They are unlikely friends - one of them tortured by his 'art', the other fat and wealthy from the earthy business of providing spare blood for the citizens of China.
Over the course of one especially gastronomic evening, the writer starts to complain about his latest Party commission: the story of an ordinary soldier who sacrifices his life to the revolutionary cause. This is not the novel he wants to write, he tells his friend. Inside his head lives an unwritten book about the people he knows or sees everyday on the streets - people who lives are far more representative of the world in which he lives...
Compelling, inventive and bleakly funny
—— Big IssueDeep black humour...owes a debt to Italo Calvino
—— Daily TelegraphMa's writing shines a light that is both humane and angry into some of the dustiest corners of a closed and often forgotten society
—— ObserverPlayful and wonderfully dark...a Chinese Kundera
—— Philip MarsdenThere's more than a whiff of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness about these tales, by turns savage, funny, unsettling
—— The TimesSkilful and unsettling
—— IndependentMr Bones is a series of characteristically dark and sharply focused snapshots from the world that Paul Theroux has observed - and invented
—— New York TimesSuave and accomplished
—— Washington TimesMr Bones showcases the author's virtuoso storytelling abilities, as he tells stories of tricky situations, slippery personalities and unsettling motives
—— Seattle TimesMisfits and twisted individuals loom large throughout these urbane stories . . . satirically edged.
—— The CulturePaul Theroux combines the traveller's hawk eye with the novelist's keen insight. . .[he has] an uncanny ability to rivet the reader.
—— New StatesmanA masterpiece of wit and elegance.
—— Elspeth Barker , Literary ReviewThe author charts the various stages of life with engaging curiosity and earthy compassion... The publishers, Jonathan Cape, have done a fine job with this handsome and substantial collection.
—— Keith Hopper , Times Literary SupplementAll the customary satisfactions of Burnside's writing – anomie, menace, flashes of violence and cruelty, hallucination and snow – but multiplied.
—— Sunday TelegraphEven Burnside’s most routine stories have beauty and intelligence. He is never less than something like brilliant.
—— Daily TelegraphA tremendous collection from a writer working at the full tilt of his gifts.
—— Kevin Barry , Ormskirk Advertiser