Cheng Gong runs his finger over the coin and sends it spinning into the air. It lands in the snow without making a sound. They stare at each other. When they look down, the falling snow has completely covered the coin. He and Jiaqi stand there, listening to distant noises: a car engine starting, a dog barking, children shrieking with laughter. Sounds of early morning. Cheng Gong smells the aroma of frying meat. Thick sweet sauce bubbling in a wok. Wait, then wait a moment longer. Scoop it from the wok, mix with shredded cucumber, ladle it into a pure white bowl.

END.

About the Author and Translator

Zhang Yueran is one of China’s most influential young writers. Her novel Cocoon sold more than 120,000 copies in China and has been translated into several languages. In France it was nominated for the Best Foreign Book Prize 2019 and won the Best Asian Novel of the Prix Transfuge 2019. Zhang has been chief editor of Newwriting since 2008 and teaches literature and creative writing at Renmin University in China. She was chosen by Asymptote as one of 20 Sinophone writers under 40 to look out for.

Jeremy Tiang has translated over twenty books from Chinese, including novels by Shuang Xuetao, Lo Yi-Chin, Yan Ge, Yeng Pway Ngon, Chan Ho-Kei, and Geling Yan. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. He also writes and translates plays. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in New York City.

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Author / Translator / Publisher Quotes

Author

“Years ago, around the time I started writing Cocoon, I was slowly beginning to understand that I didn’t know how to love, or perhaps I’d lost part of my ability to love. As I wrote, and at length my father slipped into my words without me realizing it, I started to grasp that many issues of love had to do with him. Even so, it was only with this novel that I truly understood that perhaps his temperament wasn’t something he was born with, but a product of his history, his generation.”

Translator

“When Cocoon was published in 2016, I was blown away by the verve and delicacy with which it treated the lingering aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. Although I’d already translated two books by Zhang, this felt like such an evolution in her writing style that I needed to find a new voice in English for her. It’s been a pleasurable challenge meeting the demands of this bold, heart-wrenching novel, with its reframing of recent Chinese history from a millennial perspective, and I can’t wait for Anglophone readers to come under its spell.”

Publisher