Braised Pork

Author(s): An Yu

Fiction

One morning in autumn, Jia Jia walks into the bathroom of her Beijing apartment to find her husband - with whom she had been breakfasting barely an hour before - dead in the bathtub. Next to him a piece of paper unfolds like the wings of a butterfly, and on it is an image that Jia Jia can't forget. Profoundly troubled by what she has seen, even while she is abruptly released from a marriage that had constrained her, Jia Jia embarks on a journey to discover the truth of the sketch. Starting at her neighbourhood bar, with its brandy and vinyl, and fuelled by anger, bewilderment, curiosity and love, Jia Jia travels deep into her past in order to arrive at her future. Braised Pork is a cinematic, often dreamlike evocation of nocturnal Beijing and the high plains of Tibet, and 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.

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: MEL M


Set between Beijing and Tibet, Braised Pork tells the story of young widow Jia Jia whose husband takes his own life and leaves her a mystery to solve - intentionally or not – in the form of a strange drawing. Her curiosity takes her on an odd, earnest and surprising journey across Asia and into her own family’s history as she finds her place in the world.


Jia Jia works through her grief and her husband’s mystery while navigating the pressures put on young Chinese women to be subservient to men. Jia Jia, in pursuing happiness and satisfaction for herself, parts radically from the vision of her life she thought she had to accept wherein she was dependent on her husband emotionally and financially.


An Yu’s writing has something of the strangeness of Haruki Murakami, and something all her own. It’s emotionally delicate, well-paced, sexy, and moving.


 

29.99 AUD

Stock: 0


Add to Wishlist


Product Information

General Fields

  • : 9781787301870
  • : Penguin Random House
  • : Harvill Secker
  • : 0.294
  • : November 2020
  • : ---length:- '21.6'width:- '13.5'units:- Centimeters
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : An Yu
  • : Paperback
  • : Jan-20
  • : English
  • : 823.92
  • : 240