Old Floating Cloud - Two Novellas

Can Xue draws the reader into a world of the grotesque and the surreal, of uncertain spaces and indeterminate identities, of sexual menace and psychological disorientation. These novellas are about life in post-Mao China, but not the China of social realism or of Western fantasy. At the forefront of China's new literary trends, these two novellas--"Yellow Mud Street" and "Old Floating Cloud"--explore Chinese reality through images of the absurd, sudden and illogical juxtapositions, and the limitless transformations induced by a unique imagination.

"Can Xue's writing is among the most innovative to have appeared in China in recent years." --Times Literary Supplement

"Both novellas describe hell on earth in a fragmented style matching the disjointed world depicted, an often frightful picture that could be a canvas painted jointly by Bosch and Dali." --Library Journal