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Asian authors have written some of the most anticipated books of 2020 – Meng Jin’s Little Gods is a contender for book of the year
- Among the books to look forward to in 2020 are titles from China’s Meng Jin, Yan Lianke and Marie Lu
- There are also releases from international names such as Hilary Mantel, Elena Ferrante and Suzanne Collins
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After 2019’s convincing impersonation of a trailer for the apocalypse, 2020 starts in refreshingly optimistic, if familiar fashion – in the book world at least.
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This year’s preview can begin with almost the same words as last year’s: “First up among early waking giants is Jin Yong, whose epic wuxia novels made him arguably the world’s most popular novelist of the past 30 years.” A Bond Undone , part two of Anna Holmwood’s superb translation of the Legends of the Condor Heroes’ series, was one of my favourite books from last year, and whets the appetite for A Snake Lies Waiting, published this month.
Also out this month is a novel by a newer but no less exciting Chinese author, Shanghai-born Meng Jin. Now based in New York, she is publishing the keenly anticipated Little Gods. The plot is sparked when 17-year-old Liya carries the ashes of her mother, Su Lan, back to China.
What the joyful, ambitious and brilliant physicist Liya discovers through accounts of old friends drives her to investigate what made the woman she knew so melancholy. After visiting Su Lan’s remote birthplace, Liya arrives in Beijing, where she learns the truth of her own birth – on the night of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Little Gods is already a contender for book of the year.
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March serves up a similarly tantalising blend of established titan and young tyro. Yan Lianke publishes a memoir, Three Brothers, offering closely observed snapshots of the writer’s poverty-stricken childhood in rural Henan province, the Cultural Revolution, the extraordinary characters in his extended family, war and joining the army, and the formative love of books and opera that inspired him to write.
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