Books by Can Xue

Rammen for Aldrende skyer i drift er historien om en kvinde, Xu Ruhua, som har en affære med naboens mand Geng Shanwu, men inden for denne ramme beskriver Can Xue med et brutalt fravær af sentimentalitet den skade, den psykiske vold, den magt, den overvågning karaktererne udsætter hinanden for, og deres paranoia og manglende evne til at indgå i meningsfyldte sociale relationer. Værket er lyrisk og halucinerende, men materien er skidtet, mudderen, insekterne, afføringen, understregelsen af de ikke-attraktive kroppe og deres væren i verden.Can Xue beskrives oftest som avantgarde-forfatter og som en unik stemme i kinesisk litteratur, der med sin eksperimenterende og surrealistiske stil skiller sig ud fra den mere traditionelle kinesiske socialrealisme. Hun er ikke tidligere oversat til dansk, men hendes forfatterskab har fået international opmærksomhed de seneste år. Elsempelvis var hendes seneste roman Love in the New Millennium longlistet til Bookerprsen i år, og hun blev endnu en gang nævnt i hovedfeltet af kandidater ved året uddeling af Nobelprisen.

In Can Xue’s extraordinary book, we encounter a full assemblage of husbands, wives, and lovers. Entwined in complicated, often tortuous relationships, these characters step into each other’s fantasies, carrying on conversations that are “forever guessing games.” Their journeys reveal the deepest realms of human desire, figured in Can Xue’s vision of snakes and wasps, crows, cats, mice, earthquakes, and landslides. In dive bars and twisted city streets, on deserts and snowcapped mountains, the author creates an extreme world where every character “is driving death away with a singular performance.” Who is the last lover? The novel is bursting with vividly drawn characters. Among them are Joe, sales manager of a clothing company in an unnamed Western country, and his wife, Maria, who conducts mystical experiments with the household’s cats and rosebushes. Joe’s customer Reagan is having an affair with Ida, a worker at his rubber plantation, while clothing-store owner Vincent runs away from his wife in pursuit of a woman in black who disappears over and over again. By the novel’s end, we have accompanied these characters on a long march, a naive, helpless, and forsaken search for love, because there are just some things that can’t be stopped—or helped.