Author:Su Tong,Howard Goldblatt
Tan Feng was my one and only friend in Sichuan. He was the same age as me: about eight or nine. Tan Feng's family lived next door to us, and their other kids were all girls, so you can imagine how they spoiled their only boy. They really adored him, but they didn't know what he got up to. Tan Feng stole things.
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.
A lifetime's achievement in more than one sense
—— Sunday TimesStartling in their simple perfection
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—— Margaret AtwoodRarely does a great writer offer himself to us with an oeuvre so complete
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—— Yann MartelKeret's surreal conceits are couched in a wry, downbeat language...The effect is something like a sorrowful hybrid of Kafka and Donald Barthelme: deadpan on the surface, with a bassnote of discomfort and emotional alienation that makes even the briefest tales snag in the mind...Each piece is at once universal and particular...world-class gems. The translation is brilliant, too
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