Braised Pork

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Brought to you by Penguin.

CONTEMPORARY BEIJING FROM A YOUNG LITERARY STAR
‘So elegant and poised, so tuned to the great mysteries of love and loss. Braised Pork is a major debut’ -- John Freeman

One morning in autumn, just after breakfast, Jia Jia finds her husband dead in the bathtub of their Beijing apartment.
Next to him is a piece of folded paper, a sketch of a strange creature from his dream. He has left her no other sign.

Young, alone, and with many unanswered questions, Jia Jia sets out on a journey. Starting at her neighbourhood bar, fuelled by anger, bewilderment, curiosity and love, she travels from nocturnal Beijing to the high plains of Tibet, deep into her past in order to arrive at her future.

Cinematic, often dreamlike, Braised Pork is an exploration of myth-making, loss, and a world beyond words, which ultimately sees a young woman find a new and deeper sense of herself.

© An Yu 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

  • An elegant, dreamlike tale of a woman’s self-realisation in contemporary Beijing. Yu’s writing has an arresting, unadorned lyricism

    Daily Telegraph

  • A seductive, sharply observed tale of love, loss and hope that moves from high-rise Beijing to rural Tibet and the mysterious, magical ‘world of water’

    Daily Mail

  • A startlingly original imagination… Braised Pork is a sensitive portrait of alienated young womanhood as it is set free

    Guardian

  • Rich and strange … Braised Pork is a debut that gets under your skin

    Observer

  • Braised Pork is mesmerising, incisive and utterly disarming. An Yu writes beautifully about loneliness, the experience of isolation — from others, from one’s own past — and the possibility of human connection, however fragile.

    Rosie Price

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