Winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut FictionA Guardian,Nylon,Buzzfeed,Cosmopolitan,Vulture and Shelf Awareness Book of the Year 2017'Relegate anything else you're reading - there is no other book to be seen with now'The Times'Obscene,beautiful,moving'New Yorker Centred on a community of immigrants precariously balanced on the edge of poverty in 1990s New York City,the stories that make up Sour Heart examine the ways that family and history can weigh us down,but also lift us up. From the young woman coming to terms with her grandmother's role in the Cultural Revolution,to the daughter struggling to understand where her family ends and she begins,these vibrant,raw and powerful stories introduce a bold and singular new voice.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLCISBN: 9781408892374Number of pages: 320Weight: 264 gDimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Relegate anything else you're reading - there is no other book to be seen with nowDeliciously subverts conventions of "immigrant literature"Obscene,beautiful,moving...Jenny Zhang's astounding short story collection,Sour Heart,combines ingenious and tightly controlled technical artistry with an unfettered emotional directness that frequently moves,within single sentences,from overwhelming beauty to abject painThe writing is vibrant,the smells of the city vivid. Zhang's is an exciting voice and a welcome oneZhang gives life to a chorus of voices rich with reinvention,a narrative genealogy of what it is to be,to speak and to write across many forms of expression at onceSwerves from off-kilter humour to quiet devastationZhang is a new name to me,but what a discovery! These interlinked stories follow the lives of young Chinese immigrants struggling to make sense of life in modern America. They are intense,unsettling,occasionally filthyand often wildly funnyA hilarious and highly original debut collection...With a voice that is relatable yet wonderfully original,Zhang explores themes of sexual awakening,identity,poverty and integrating as an immigrant in the western world...A collection where it is difficult to pick a stand-out story because each leaves such a markA refreshingly honest portrayal of some of the more universal realities of girlhood...That's what makes Zhang's work so remarkable: her unique ability to tell universal truths about what it means to belong,while illuminating realities we simply do not hear often enough about A new voice for a generation - a hugely original debut short story collection...Zhang's writing is gritty,confronting and continually surprising - the bleakest moments are shot through with love and humour...the raw edge of Zhang's very necessary new voice had me gripped Raw,and often darkly comic...the tales revel in the intimate details of domesticity,resonant of A M Homes or Helen EllisA tapestry of beautifully evocative storiesWho isn't anticipating this book Jenny Zhang is one of the most exciting and thoroughly original new voices in American fiction,and Sour Heart is worth every bit of hype...Hilarious and devastating,tender,and mischievous. Zhang's beautiful,direct and sometimes scatological poetry (and her bang-on essays) had already won many of us over,but this book will catapult her to another leagueThe narrators of these tales pull you close and hold you hostage with their singular takes on the world...You'd be hard pressed to find a more intimate,raw and funny collection this summerA buzz bookAs I read,I quickly realized this was something so new and powerful that it would come to shape the world,not just the literary world,but what we know about reality. Zhang's version of honesty goes way past the familiar,with passages that burst into a bold,startling brilliance. Get readyHer writing is resolute in its ability to unsettle and even uproot - lighting your every nerve on fire,leaving your every synapse flashingSour Heart blasts open the so-called'immigrant narrative'by showing us the claustrophobic,cracked lives and demented love of families and by giving us the deepest x-ray of American childhood I can recall. Dirty,hilarious,and utterly originalJenny Zhang has an uncanny ability to articulate the most confusing,conflicting,elusive thoughts and feelings - the kinds that occur in under a millisecond but secretly rule our lives. It's dazzling to witness until one observation or line of dialogue sends you over the edge into the depths of another person's truth. I emerged from Sour Heart bleary-eyed and in love
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