The Unfilial: Four Tragic Tales from Modern China
家庭生活
Overview
English Translation Available
Rights Sold: English (Sinoist/ 2024)
★ Douban 2021 Annual List of Chinese Literature
★ QQ Reading's 2021 Annual Top Ten Fiction Books.
When the smallest unit of society harbors the darkest secrets
From acclaimed author Yao Emei comes a searing collection of stories that centers on the family and explores humanity and the turns of fate. Although a common motif in literature, Yao Emei brings fresh insight with her plain yet mature style. Told in simple language, The Unfilial tells stories of a son’s violent outburst by tossing a girl off a bridge, a man trafficking infants, the other woman caught up in the unusual dynamics of a married couple, and the strange new intimacies forged in the age of social media.
With deceptively simple prose, Yao weaves tales that begin in our familiar world but twist into territory both unsettling and profound. These stories arise from familiar experiences yet extend into deeper questions about money and emotion, desire and responsibility and the boundaries between victim and villain blur beyond recognition. Readers are invited to redefine themselves through their own reexamination of what a family is,
Yao Emei is more sensitive than most, quick to notice the confusion that permeates everyday life. She channels that confusion into her work, offering lessons, sometimes through striking and unexpected angles, builds with such quiet menace that its revelation feels both inevitable and shocking. Readers have called these stories bone-chilling despite having no horror elements, praising Yao's ability to reveal truth with a light touch that somehow makes the pain cut deeper.
This short story collection ncludes the following short stories: “It Runs in the Family”, “Gran Is on Her Way”, “Skeletons in the Closet”, “You’ll Do the Job with Skill and Ease”.
Author(s)
Yao Emei was born in Hubei province and currently lives in Shanghai. A prolific author, she has been praised for her surgical prose, sensitivity to character and ability to grapple with difficult topics.
Her novels include As High As The Sky, Eager to Fly and 1958: Old Love Letter as well as the Runaway Women trilogy which includes The Truth, Simple and Dress Up. Her often-anthologised novellas can be found in collections such as The Unfilial: Four Tragic Tales from Modern China, Picking Beans and Spicy Food Relieves Sorrow. She also writes for younger audiences; the English translation of her middle grade novel Tilted Sky was published in 2024.
She has won the People's Literature Award and the Shanghai Literature Excellent Novella Award, and her works have been translated into English, Russian, German, Japanese and Korean. Published in 2021, The Unfilial made various top-ten lists upon its release, including Douban’s 2021 Annual Reading List for Chinese novels and QQ Reading's 2021 Annual Top Ten Fiction Books.