The Book of Beijing: Wen Zhen and Gu Shi

We're delighted to welcome Comma Press, with authors Wen Zhen and Gu Shi, to celebrate the publication of The Book of Beijing.

What is Beijing? To the characters in these stories it is a protean city, forever changing, evasive and difficult to read... It turns close friends into strangers, up-ends carefully thought-out life choices, and leaves next-door neighbours completely unaware of each other’s true identity. The stories collected in this anthology show people in all contexts – from wannabe protestors to future users of facial expression reading tech – desperate to stake their name on the city, as well as surprised by it at every turn.

Chaired by translator Jack Hargreaves, authors Wen Zhen and Gu Shi will discuss their contributions to The Book of Beijing, and their own understandings of the city and its stories.

Copies of the book will be available to purchase, and refreshments will be provided.

All welcome, but please reserve your free place on our Eventbrite page.

And Gu Shi is a current featured author on our Bookclub, so you can find out more about her there, and read one of her stories, translated by Emily Jin. We'll also be featuring Wen Zhen soon!