The Fat Years

"Smart, incendiary . . . Although "The Fat Years" clearly owes a debt to "Brave New World," Chan's characters are infinitely more believable, and drawn with a real sense of sympathy and understanding -- something Huxley's archetypes famously lacked. As for plausibility, "The Fat Years" is almost too believable . . . An urgent clarion call for people in every country to treasure their individuality."--NPR "Chan has crafted a cunning caricature of modern China, with its friction between communism and consumerism, its desire to reframe the Revolution in terms of 'market share and the next big thing.' But he has also identified a deeper dislocation, one stretching from China to the world."--"Los Angeles Times""With its offbeat puzzle and diverting characters, "The Fat Years" is not only absorbing in its own right, it also shines reflected light on the foibles of the West."--"The New York Times Book Review""Inventive and highly topical."--"The Wall Street Journal" "A fascinating tale of China just over the horizon." --"The New Yorker" "Part political thriller, part dystopian nightmare . . . Chan reveals the moral and political perils of contemporary Chinese life."--"Publishers Weekly""Eerily prescient. . . A gripping, if not terrifying, treatise on the rise of China, present and future."--"Toronto Star ""Possibly the most audacious book to have been published by a Chinese author not living in exile since Lu Xun excoriated the atrophied Confucianism of the early 20th century. . . . This novel isn't only essential reading, it is also urgent."--"The Globe and Mail""In conjuring China's very near future, Chan Koonchung has given us a bracingly honest portrait of the present. He captures all the flamboyant paradoxes of daily life in China on the cusp of empire, but is also awake to its submerged anxieties. His writing is steeped in humor and fantasy, but his project could not be mo