How the Ceremony Ends/The Water Demon (Storycuts)

Two short stories: a folklorist collecting stories enrages some villagers; and a little girl on a bridge shouts warnings about the water demon.

Born in 1963 in Suzhou and now living in Beijing with his family, Su Tong is one of China's most celebrated bestselling authors, shooting to international fame in 1993 when Zhang Yimou's film of his novella Raise the Red Lantern was nominated for an Oscar. His first short story collection Madwoman on the Bridge was published by Black Swan in 2008.

In 'How the Ceremony Ends', it was last winter that the folklorist paid his visit to the village of Eight Pines. He wanted to collect folk tales and customs, to re-enact the ceremonies of life and death that only old men still remember. But somehow he managed to provoke the villagers. 
 
In 'The Water Demon', at the beginning, no-one noticed the little girl on the bridge. No-one knew what she was doing; she just stood and watched. She would call out loudly, 'Here comes the water demon! Get out of the water or he will get you by the feet!' and tear away out of sight. Then, one day, there was no little girl on the bridge. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Dance of Heartbreak/The Diary for August (Storycuts)

Two short stories: a boy and girl who was like 'a little child of glass'; and a young boy, dripping wet from the swimming pool, has caused a disaster.

In 'Dance of Heartbreak', something happened to a young boy in Grade 4, at Red Flag Elementary School; but even today the whole affair remains fresh in his mind. He'd never met another girl like her; she was a little child of glass, beautiful in her sorrow when she ran to centre stage. For him, she was an archetype. 
 
In 'The Diary for August', the inspector looked at the suspect who had been brought in for the incident at the city wall. He was fourteen or fifteen, dripping wet from the swimming pool where they had found him, and both his legs were trembling. It looked like he knew he had caused a disaster. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Goddess Peak/The Q of Hearts (Storycuts)

Two short stories: a love triangle aboard a steamboat; and a dystopian portrait of a childhood during the cultural revolution.

In 'Goddess Peak', Miaoyue and Li Yong were almost the last two passengers aboard the steamboat to Goddess Peak - them and Li Yong's friend Mr Cui. Miaoyue found Mr Cui taller and better built than she'd imagined, and also a little younger and more handsome. For some reason, this irritated her. 
 
In 'The Q of Hearts', when the boy found the Queen of Hearts missing from his deck of cards, he immediately assumed that someone had stolen it. It was 1969, and those cards were his only toy. He searched everywhere for a new one - but only found things to frighten him. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Atmospheric Pressure (Storycuts)

A stay at a hostel brings up old associations.

The train was late, and the wind was blowing Meng's coat open in the snow. With no sign of his cousin, he needed somewhere to stay the night. An old man enticed him to a second-rate hostel, and despite his annoyance, Meng couldn't shake the feeling that he'd seen this place, and the old man, before. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Home in May (Storycuts)

Visiting an old neighbourhood unearths memories of the past.

Yongshan is taking her son back to Licheng to visit relatives, and to see the town where she grew up. But when they get there, all she could find were desolate houses. Even the people on the street seemed not to recognise her. But then, in the rubble of her old neighbourhood, Yongshan finds something to grab hold of - a memento of the past. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Madwoman on the Bridge (Storycuts)

A classic story of madness and lost civilisations.

The madwoman was wearing a white velvet cheongsam. Standing on the bridge, she revelled in her own faded splendour. Normal people pay no attention to madwomen, but one woman from Shaoxing stayed on the bridge that afternoon to talk to this one; what was she coveting? 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

On Saturdays (Storycuts)

A friend who likes to visit on Saturday. Every Saturday.

You don't expect some guy making small talk on a train to turn into a real friend, but that was just the kind of friend Papa Qi was. And afterwards, Saturday became Papa Qi's visiting day. Every Saturday. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.`

The Giant Baby (Storycuts)

The virgin birth of a monstrous child is the trigger for rumours in a village.

It was rare for the people from Wangbao to come down from their mountain village, but one spring, they arrive in town with sensational news - a virgin birth. What's more, there is something very odd about the baby - he is as big as a child of three, black all over and missing a finger. The villagers whisper that he is the thunder god's son, but back in town, the local doctor knows something he is too afraid to tell. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

The Private Banquet (Storycuts)

The mafia and new consumerism China-style when two schoolfriends reunite.

Bao Qing was a classic example of what people in Maqiao meant when they spat out the word 'intellectual'. Coming home to his old town for the holidays was just as much trouble as not coming home, for this was a town where his old schoolmate Fatcat had every local business in his pocket. And Fatcat considered the returning 'professor' a celebrity. Bao Qing was about to get an invitation he could not refuse. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Thieves (Storycuts)

A childhood friend's life of crime.

Tan Feng was my one and only friend in Sichuan. He was the same age as me: about eight or nine. Tan Feng's family lived next door to us, and their other kids were all girls, so you can imagine how they spoiled their only boy. They really adored him, but they didn't know what he got up to. Tan Feng stole things. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Weeping Willow (Storycuts)

A truck driver undergoes an ordeal in the town of Weeping Willow.

Weeping Willow was a place that survived by serving long-distance drivers, with petrol, food and girls. The truck driver was badly shaken as he arrived there in the dark and rain, but more shaken when he left. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Madwoman On The Bridge And Other Stories

From the bestselling Chinese author of RAISE THE RED LANTERN

What i admire most is Su Tong's style ...delicate yet bizarre. His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent.

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose.

For RAISE THE RED LANTERN, 'A remarkable story, subtle and profound'

Su Tong's evocation of one family's destiny in 1930s China is stark and vivid in the extreme. A chilling and macabre tale, characteristically told with imagination and unflinching honesty

For MY LIFE AS EMPEROR: Su Tong's Xie Empire is a dreamlike, beautiful, brutal place ...his prose is full of gorgeous images

Praise for RICE: Su Tong has fashioned a cruel, heartrending and enormously passionate assault on the traditions of the Western novel. There's no love here; no redemption, no triumph of the individual. Unless you count the triumph inherent in Su Tong's overwhelming imaginative virtuosity

Breath-taking ... Su Tong renders these people so vividly they possess of us, the individuality that they deny one another

Scorching ...spinning a plot featuring blackmail, adultery, incest and scandal, Su Tong creates visceral drama that moves rapidly in Goldblatt's fluid translation

A riveting melodrama ... page by page, the novel stuns us with a sequence of hallucinatory, disturbing inventions ...Balzac and Zola would have recognized a kindred spirit in Su Tong

These are stories that will sneak into the back of your brain and lurk there long after you are finished reading.

Born in 1963 in Suzhou and now living in Beijing with his family, Su Tong is one of China's most celebrated bestselling authors, shooting to international fame in 1993 when Zhang Yimou's film of his novella Raise the Red Lantern was nominated for an Oscar. Madwoman on the Bridge is his first collection of short stories ever to be published. It is to be followed by his latest novel, Check, a violent drama set in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, to be published by Doubleday in 2009.

Set during the fall-out of the Cultural Revolution, these bizarre and delicate stories capture the collision of the old China of vanished dynasties, with communism and today's tiger economy. 
The mad woman on the bridge wears a historical gown which she refuses to take off. In the height of summer she stands madly on the bridge. Until a young female doctor, bewitched by the beauty of the mad woman's dress, plots to take it from her, with tragic consequences.

Su Tong

Howard Goldblatt

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose

What I admire most is Su Tong's style...His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent

Powerful and elegant ...the world he so vividly depicts has the timelessness of a classical Chinese court painting

There is something soothing and insistent about the sound and feel of Su Tong's writing.Chinese customs and characters make the mood strange and different....Language, its feel and construction, flows like the river into the reader's imagination... [More] twists, turns and tragedies hold the reader's attention right to the end. The writing is superb, the word pictures of the river and its people memorable. And Yes, it could make great cinema

The major achievement of this novel is Su Tong's decision to forgo his strength as a prose stylist and settle for a familiar story told in a familiar language. Despite the tendency of the younger generation to dismiss the cultural revolution as a bygone era, this recent past, with its cruelties and absurdities, still lives in the nation's memory. At his best, Su Tong is able to catch the tragedy and comedy of that time, using a highly political language . . . Dialogues filled with political clichés of the time are the highlight of the novel.

Su Tong masterfully skates over the political implications of his story while exposing, not with a bludgeon (often the style of Chinese novels) but with scalpel-like precision, the social faultlines that are used by the Party to guarantee what it calls 'stability'...i got a lot out of this story but kept in mind what Su Tong didn't dare say out loud

Tong paints with broad brush-strokes and the humour is rough, raw and irreverent, but there is genuine sympathy for the maverick whose impetuous behavious can only bring trouble in a prescriptive, claustrophobic world

Disgraced Secretary Ku has been banished from the Party - it has been officially proved he does not have a fish-shaped birthmark on his bottom and is therefore not the son of a revolutionary martyr, but the issue of a river pirate and a prostitute. Mocked by the citizens of Milltown, Secretary Ku leaves the shore for a new life among the boat people on a fleet of industrial barges. Refusing to renounce his high status, he maintains a distance - with Dongliang, his teenage son - from the gossipy lowlifes who surround him. 
 
One day a feral little girl, Huixian, arrives looking for her mother, who has jumped to her death in the river. The boat people, and especially Dongliang, take her to their hearts. But Huixian sows conflict wherever she goes, and soon Dongliang is in the grip of an obsession for her. He takes on Life, Fate and the Party in the only way he knows . . .

The Boat to Redemption

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Su Tong

Praise for The Boat to Redemption

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose

What I admire most is Su Tong's style...His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent

Powerful and elegant ...the world he so vividly depicts has the timelessness of a classical Chinese court painting

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose

What I admire most is Su Tong's style...His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent

Powerful and elegant ...the world he so vividly depicts has the timelessness of a classical Chinese court painting

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose

What I admire most is Su Tong's style...His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent

Powerful and elegant ...the world he so vividly depicts has the timelessness of a classical Chinese court painting

Books by Su Tong

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