Braised Pork

Contemporary Beijing comes alive in the hands of a young literary star 'An Yu writes beautifully about loneliness, the experience of isolation, and the possibility of human connection, however fragile. Braised Pork is mesmerising' -- Rosie Price, author of What Red Was One autumn morning in Beijing, just after breakfast, Jia Jia's life changes for ever. After the sudden loss of her husband, the young artist sets out on a journey from a hidden jazz and whiskey bar, via a strange and dreamlike world of water, to the high plains of Tibet. Along the way, she crosses paths with people experiencing losses of their own, including someone who may be able to offer her the love she had long thought impossible. Cinematic and delicately beautiful, Braised Pork is an exploration of myth-making, connection, a world beyond words, and of a young woman's search deep into her past, in order to arrive at her future. **A STYLIST BEST BOOK OF 2020**

About the Author :
An Yu was born and raised in Beijing, and left at the age of eighteen to study in New York at NYU. A graduate of the NYU MFA in Creative Writing, she writes her fiction in English. She is twenty-six years old and lives between Paris and Hong Kong. Her debut novel, Braised Pork, was published by Harvill Secker in 2020.

Review :
An elegant, dreamlike tale of a woman’s self-realisation in contemporary Beijing. Yu’s writing has an arresting, unadorned lyricism A seductive, sharply observed tale of love, loss and hope that moves from high-rise Beijing to rural Tibet and the mysterious, magical ‘world of water’ A startlingly original imagination... Braised Pork is a sensitive portrait of alienated young womanhood as it is set free Rich and strange … Braised Pork is a debut that gets under your skin Braised Pork is mesmerising, incisive and utterly disarming. An Yu writes beautifully about loneliness, the experience of isolation — from others, from one’s own past — and the possibility of human connection, however fragile. So elegant and poised, so tuned to the great mysteries of love and loss. Like a breeze on a still day, An Yu’s is a voice I didn't know I needed until I felt it. Braised Pork is a major debut Bold yet understated, Braised Pork is the debut of a supremely confident and gifted writer. What a singular, slippery, transfixing novel this is. An Yu achieves a hypnotizing emotional clarity as she takes her narrator ever further from a stifling life in Beijing into a watery realm unlike any I've read before. Yu’s novel has a cool, poised elegance that only adds to its enigmatic allure A dizzying read… An Yu writes with style and in a way that is hard to resist Richly associative, the book’s imagery insinuates itself into the reader’s consciousness long after it’s finished This exquisite novel is many things: a detective story in which the real object of pursuit is how one makes meaning of a sometimes ineffable existence; a meditation on the talismanic power of art and the indefatigability of the human spirit; and a many-faceted, perfectly cut gem of psychological portraiture set in well-wrought sentences burnished to a gorgeous luster. The emotions in this book keep pace with you, shadowing you with a quiet intensity, until in the last stretch they overtake you completely.

What a singular, slippery, transfixing novel this is. An Yu achieves a hypnotizing emotional clarity as she takes her narrator ever further from a stifling life in Beijing into a watery realm unlike any I've read before.

Bold yet understated, Braised Pork is the debut of a supremely confident and gifted writer.'