jz’s Reviews > Granta 169: China > Status Update

阎连科 black pig hair white pig hair: Stop The Pig Violence. this story felt so heavyhanded lmao… the people fighting to serve jail time for the mayor are pigs lining up to be slaughtered while the same thing is literally happening outside… and this fking moron trying to thwart fate at every turn so he can serve jail time lol

莫言 the leftie sickle: what a weird ending tho i guess the reason is both joy and tian kui were victimized by the people of the village at some point

胡须冬 greenland (poem): “when i heard that, i felt a majestic sled dog / spring out from my ribs, freed from / dragging around my life in an empire, / and rush toward the ice sheet.”

胡须冬 song of the bicycle & the fence (poem): “at midnight / the bicycle propels itself, its lonely chain / clicking along with cloud-shaped dolphins / in the starry sky. a lesson on labor movements / surges through the bike frame.”

wu qi, rules of the game (interview): social realism tradition vs proletariat literature (“a success story can never be the story of the true underclass”), dongbei renaissance & dongbei as the prototype of “socialist development”, word of mouth & media publicity seemingly quicker to catch on to the potential of a new author than the critic—implications for the establishment?

郑小琼 birds (poem): “i am listening to the rain decay on the workstations / the restive automatic slider is as lithe as the rain / falling on the branches beyond the city limits and my body / i peel rust from corroded iron in the workshop, between dreaming and gazing / time has rusted, the rain pauses on the birds’ wings”

li jie & zhang jungang, the civilian level (photography): “they are sceptical of the divide between past & present, a distinction which they believe photography has traditionally conspired to emphasise. they do not want to tell stories with their camera. instead, they seek to confirm their intuitions.” these photos are the 东北est part of this entire issue lol

蓝蓝 for pessoa (poem): “odd gauge for a masterpiece: / shy sensitivity. / your love exceeds your words.”

蓝蓝 my cows arrive (poem): “bite by bite, may they grade the meadow / of hard fact, the dark works of their interior / feed the ghosts of my fervent heart.”

i liked the one with the cows grazing as metaphor for the machinations of the subconscious more

王占黑 goodbye, bridge of the east: guy runs around shanghai taking photos of his xhs influencer girl friend until they find themselves back at bridge of the east, a place where they both have formative memories. nostalgia for millennials, thought it was ok

黄梵 cup (poem): “since childhood, this cup has been legless / your hands are wings to fly it through the room / even if you drain it, leaving it nothing / it thinks your lip print is a marriage contract”. my favorite!