The Invisible Valley

"The Invisible Valley is an extraordinary novel. It opens, even to Chinese readers, the world of a southern hinterland, a world of rubber groves, mystery and superstition. At the same time, the novel is intimately rooted in China's modern history and resonates with universal implications. Austin Woerner's vivid and supple translation has made it even more readable."
- Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award

"Su Wei's The Invisible Valley is a rich romantic story told with sharp humor and filled with vivid descriptions of the lush, dense highlands of a remote Chinese tropical island. Translated with a light hand and subtle wit by Austin Woerner, the novel moves in quick graceful stages after its hapless young hero, Lu Beiping, discovers to his dismay that he's been ghost-married to a dead girl. Bizarre folkways, rituals and superstitions abound, along with hints of a great serpent awakening. It's a joy to read such a strange, wonderful tale by a Chinese master in this brisk and lucid translation." - Patrick McGrath, author of Asylum

"Su Wei's remarkable novel The Invisible Valley has drawn praise in Chinese literary circles both inside and outside China. Su Wei belongs to the generation of Chinese writers who 'went down to the countryside' at the behest of Chairman Mao in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his novel was inspired by his personal experience in the wild, semi-tropical hills of Hainan Island in China's far south. The power of this natural background-typhoons, jungles, giant snakes, pungent odors, and more-pervades the work and melds into the vivid human characters that populate it."

- Perry Link, Emeritus Professor of Chinese, Princeton University