Xiaobo Wang

90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Razor-sharp, pugnacious and blackly funny, Wang Xiaobo’s essays established him as one of China’s most popular – and subversive – writers. From the political power of silence to the irrepressible spirit of a pig he met while working in a commune, these reflections on life and literature in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution provide a rare glimpse of a fearless satirical genius.

The bestselling novel by cult writer Wang Xiaobo, a satire of the Cultural Revolution, in its first full English translation Twenty-one year old Wang Er, stationed in a remote mountain commune, spends his days herding oxen, napping and dreaming of losing his virginity. His dreams come true in the shape of the beautiful doctor Cheng Qinyang. So begins the riotously funny story of their illicit love affair, the Party officials who enjoy their forced confessions a little too much, and Wang's life under the Communist regime: his misadventures as a biology lecturer in a Beijing university, and his entanglements with family, friends and lovers. Golden Age is an explosive, subversive, wild and hilarious satire, featuring one of literature's great protagonists, a sensation when it was published in the 1990s and beloved today.

The dazzling essays of the beloved, subversive Chinese writer Wang Xiaobo, a continual bestseller in China, now in English for the first time Wang Xiaobo made his name as a novelist but his essays, too, have become ongoing bestsellers in China since their publication in the 1990s. Bringing together his thoughts on reading and talking and silence in the Cultural Revolution, about the irrepressible spirit of one beloved pig he met while an 'educated youth', and about being operated on via a textbook, these essays give a rare glimpse into a world rarely seen and discussed with such honesty. Written with a light touch and with a wry sense of humour, these are also the essays of a great literary talent, grappling with sociology, sexuality and feminism, with the cultural clash of living in the USA, and with Chinese sci-fi, the internet, and beloved European writers like Bertrand Russell and Italo Calvino. Electrifying, containing a razor-sharp wit and intellect, this collection reveals the voice of a generation to English-speaking readers for the very first time.