Book review: Death Fugue by Sheng Keyi
Death Fugue, Sheng Keyi's second novel to be translated into English after Northern Girls, is, at its core, an absurdist take on the legacy of June 4, 1989, and the totalitarian nature of the Chinese government still in place today.
by Sheng Keyi
Giramondo Publishing
3 stars
Kit Gillet
Death Fugue, Sheng Keyi's second novel to be translated into English after Northern Girls, is, at its core, an absurdist take on the legacy of June 4, 1989, and the totalitarian nature of the Chinese government still in place today.
At the heart of the novel lies Yuan Mengliu, a poet who gave up poetry to become a doctor in the aftermath of a Tiananmen Square-like protest movement that occurs in a fictitious country called Dayang.
Unable to handle the government's violent suppression of the idealistic young students and poets, the deaths of his friends and colleagues, Yuan abandons writing and retreats into the clinical world of surgery.
At the same time he seeks solace in the arms of a multitude of young, attractive women. Once a year he heads out in search of his lost love, one of the protest's leaders who disappeared during its bloody conclusion.
On one of these trips a storm sends Yuan's boat to a land that at first appears to be a perfect society where creativity is praised above all else.