An Yu

As the sun starts slowly disappearing, the residents of a remote town in the desert find themselves undergoing shocking transformations in this dazzlingly eerie and bewitching novel. In Five Poems Lake, a town surrounded by impenetrable deserts, the sun is slowly disappearing overhead. A young woman keeps an apprehensive eye on the sky above as she tends her family's pharmacy of traditional medicine. She has few customers, and even fewer visitors. Her father was found dead by the lake twelve years ago, in unexplained circumstances. Her elder sister, Dong Ji, works at a wellness parlour across town for those who can afford it - which, during these strange and difficult days, is not many. The town fell on hard times long before the sun began to shrink. But now, as the temperature drops and the lake freezes over, the inhabitants of the town realise there is no way they can survive. When the Beacons appear - ordinary people with heads replaced by searing, blinding light, like miniature suns - the residents wonder if they may hold the answer to their salvation, or if they are just another sign of impending ruin. Soon, Dong Ji and her sister will uncover a photograph which may offer a clue in the mystery of the Beacons, and finally help them learn what happened to their father.

Nemusíš zjesť všetko, čo sa dlho varí. Príbeh ženy, ktorá našla samú seba po strate partnera. Ťia Ťia si myslela, že žije usporiadaný život – pekný byt, manžel, ticho. Až kým jedného rána nezostane sama. Bez odpovedí. Len s podivnou kresbou – rybou s ľudskou hlavou. A otázkami, ktoré si nedovolila položiť, kým bola s ním. Zatiaľ čo sa jej vonkajší svet rozpadá, vnútro sa jej pomaly prebúdza. Začne blúdiť mestom, no ešte viac blúdi vlastným vnútrom. V spomienkach, tichu a snoch o zvláštnom vodnom bytí nachádza niečo, čo doteraz ignorovala – seba. Príbeh ženy, ktorá sa odvážila neostať v tom, čo ju dusilo. Pre čitateľky, ktoré vedia, že nie všetko, čo trvá dlho, je aj správne. Ak milujete Elenu Ferrante, Deliu Owens alebo Harukiho Murakamiho, táto kniha vás pohltí ticho... ale dôsledne.

A pianist in Beijing must find a way to the life she really wants, in this atmospheric new novel from the critically acclaimed author of Braised Pork For three years, Song Yan has filled the emptiness of her Beijing apartment with the tentative notes of her young piano students. When she married, she gave up on her own career as a concert pianist, but her husband Bowen has long rebuffed her pleas to have a child. Instead, she must accommodate her mother-in-law, newly arrived from the province of Yunnan and bringing with her buried family secrets. Shortly after, strange parcels show up on the doorstep, Song Yan's dreams become troubling and claustrophobic, and she loses faith even in her teaching. Striking out alone through the winter city, she finds herself pulled into the ancient hutongs to confront the source, and perhaps the salvation, of her disquiet. In a still room in an ageless, ancient house, can she find the notes she needs to make sense of all the pain and beauty in her life? A gorgeous and atmospheric novel of art and expression, grief and survival, memory and self-discovery, Ghost Music animates contemporary Beijing through the eyes of a lonely yet hopeful young woman and gives vivid colour and texture to the promise of new beginnings.