Diao Dou is well known in his native China, where he is marked out for his singular voice and unwillingness to follow literary trends. This short-story collection is his first work to be translated into English. Diao unsettles his readers by using set phrases in unexpected ways, a style that his translator, Brendan O’Kane, describes as “slightly in the uncanny valley”. Nine diverse stories showcase Diao’s pleasingly dark imagination. In “Squatting” an increasingly absurd battle of wills between petty local politicians and busybody citizens sees self-interest triumph, while the spirit of Kafka hovers over two stories, “Cockroaches” and “Metamorphosis”, both exploring the meeting point of human and animal nature. Most interesting is Diao’s neat use of structure to draw narrative lines that often circle deftly back to their starting point. In “An Old-Fashioned Romance” a young woman’s relationship is subsumed by her obsession with her teacher’s ideal love affair, while the story that gives the collection its title is made up of a lively ring of linking tales.
