Book cover for Mother River by Can Xue

Mother River

Can Xue
2025 Released
4-5 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Open Letter BooksISBN 9781960385536
Translated by Karen Gernant, Chen Zeping

Winner of the 2015 Best Translated Book Award


In Mother River, Can Xue, one of China’s most daring and visionary writers, invites us into a surreal landscape where reality is as fluid as a river itself. This collection of thirteen stories weaves together vivid, dreamlike narratives that challenge our perceptions of time, identity, and existence. 
Through her signature blend of the absurd and the profound, Can Xue explores the fragile boundaries betwen the known and unknown, between humanity and nature. In these tales, a man tries to chase down an ellusive golden peacock, a woman communicates with mysterious, shifting forms of light,  and the river that runs through a small village seems to pulse with memories of its own.
Surreal, provocative, and unique, Mother River reinforces Can Xue’s status as one of the most rewarding and complex writers working today—and a perennial favorite to win the Nobel Prize.

Can Xue

Can Xue is the pseudonym of celebrated experimental writer Deng Xiaohua, born in 1953 in the city of Changsha. She is the author of Vertical Motion, Frontier, Barefoot Doctor, and Five Spice Street, among other books.

More by Can Xue

The Enchanting Lives of Others
Love in the New Millennium
Frontier
Barefoot Doctor
Vertical Motion
The Last Lover
Five Spice Street
Dialogues in Paradise
Old Floating Cloud
The White Review No.30
Blue Light in the Sky & Other Stories
I Live in the Slums

Karen Gernant

Translated by

Karen Gernant is a professor emerita of Chinese history.

Chen Zeping

Translated by

Chen Zeping was a professor emeritus of Chinese linguistics.

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