Breathing

The story is set in Shanghai in the late 1980s. Luo Ke, the protagonist, works as a part-time shop window painter. He once served in the army for several years and fought in the Vietnam War at the close of the 60s, when he was still young. The plot unfolds in his relationships with five women—Yin Mang, a college student; Yin Chu, her sister; Ou Xiaolin, an actress; Liu Yazhi, an art teacher; and Xiang An, a worker. The past, the present, and the future overlap when the writer narrates their complicated family histories, mutual dependence and betrayal, eccentric and introspective way of living, excessive thinking and obsession with eternity as a result of previous traumas.

It is a tale of love and desire filled with resounding reminiscence. When people start to waver and hesitate, their present desire ends, and a new episode of life begins, with signs of the changing times waiting for the readers to find out.

Sun Ganlu was born in Shanghai in 1959. He is currently a writer, vice chairman of the Shanghai Writers’ Association, president of literary magazine Bud and chief strategist of Shanghai International Literary Week of Shanghai Book Fair.

His representative works include: the novel Breathing; a collection of short stories and novellas A Visit to Dreamland; the novels Asking Women to Solve Riddles and Remembering the Qin Maid; the illustrated books Shanghai’s Period Dolls and Selected Literary Fragments of Sun Ganlu Chosen by the Author; collections of essays Dancing on the Ceiling and Slower than Slow; Shanghai over the Years; and The Selected Works of Sun Ganlu. The author’s works have been translated into French, Russian, Japanese, English, Korean and many other languages.

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