There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night

These stories are dark, they are rural, they are moving, even arresting in places, and they are well translated. Cao Naiqian is a master of this subgenre--an intriguing, honest, and courageous chronicler of life in the 'other China.' -- Howard Goldblatt, University of Notre Dame and coeditor of Loud Sparrows: Contemporary Chinese Short-Shorts Swedish Nobel academician Goran Malmqvist wrote that Cao Naiqian was one of three Chinese authors who deserved the Nobel Prize. The best thing about these stories, aside from the realistic depiction of a world none of us wants to visit and few of us can imagine, is their almost lyrical presentation of human poverty, depravity, and occasional comradeship and mutual warmth. An excellent novel; the image of these disposable lives stays with one after reading. -- Michael Duke, University of British Columbia A superb translation of one of the most important and impressive works in contemporary Chinese literature. John Balcom successfully conveys the mood of this gruesome yet lyrical tale about poor peasants living in a Chinese village several light-years away from the urban centers of mainland China. -- Goran Malmqvist, member of the Swedish Academy

Set among a remote cluster of cave dwellings in Shanxi province, There's Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night is a genre-defying expose of rural communism. In a series of vivid, interlocking vignettes, several narrators speak of adultery, bestiality, incest, and vice, revealing the consequences of desire in a world of necessity. The Wen Clan Caves are based on an isolated village where the author, Cao Naiqian, lived during the Cultural Revolution. The land is hard and unforgiving and the people suffer in poverty and ignorance. Through the individual perspectives of the Wen Clan denizens, a complete portrait of village life takes shape. Dark yet lyrical, Cao's snapshots range from pastoral stories of childhood innocence to shocking accounts of brutality and terror. His work echoes William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, yet the author's depictions of elemental passions and regional mores make the book entirely his own. Celebrated for its economy of expression, flashes of humor, and an emphasis on understatement rarely found in Chinese fiction, There's Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night is an excellent introduction to the power and craft of Cao Naiqian. His vivid personalities and unflinching realism herald the haunting work of an original literary force.