Skip to content
  • Common Currency
  • Campaigns
    • PENWrites
    • Writers at Risk
    • Writers in Residence
    • Free speech in the UK
  • News
  • Events
  • Translation
    • PEN Translates
    • PEN Transmissions
    • International Translation Day
    • The World Bookshelf
      • Books
      • Authors
      • Translators
    • PEN Presents
      • Issues
      • Books
      • Apply to PEN Presents
  • Prizes
    • PEN Pinter Prize
    • PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize
  • Donate
  • Join
Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > The Fat Years

The Fat Years

Read reviews from UK reading groups here

Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no one is bothered, except for a small circle of friends who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that has possessed the Chinese nation. When they kidnap a high-ranking official and force him to reveal all, what they learn – not only about their leaders, but also about their own people – stuns them to the core. It is a message that will rock the world. Terrifying methods of cunning, deception and terror are unveiled by the truth-seekers in this thriller-expose  of the Communist Party’s stranglehold on China today.

‘A fascinating tale of China just over the horizon’
The New Yorker

‘The hottest novel to come out of China this year’
Time Out Beijing

English PEN works in partnership with The Reading Agency to inspire more people to read more books in translation. By offering PEN supported titles through the Reading Groups for Everyone Initiative we have been able to reach readers around the country and get their feedback on the books we promote. We are very grateful to Transworld Publishers for donating reading group copies of The Fat Years.

Author

Chan Koonchung

Chan Koonchung

Books

The Fat Years

Chan Koonchung was born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong. After working as a reporter at an English newspaper in Hong Kong, he founded the influential magazine City in 1976, where he was chief editor and then publisher for twenty three years. He is also a screenwriter and film producer of both Chinese and English-language films, a co-founder of the Hong Kong environmental group Green Power and a board member of Greenpeace International from 2008 to 2011. He lives in Beijing.

He recently funded the NGO, Minjian, which connects Chinese public intellectuals with their counterparts in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa. The Fat Years is his first book, a portrait of China in 2013, when capitalism in the West has self-destructed, and the Chinese people are afflicted by temporary amnesia and a sinister optimism. The book has been banned in Koonchung’s homeland.

Translator

Michael Duke

Michael Duke

Books

The Fat Years

Michael Duke received his doctorate in Chinese from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975. After thirty years of teaching, he is Professor Emeritus of Chinese and Comparative Literature at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Blooming and Contending: Chinese Literature in the Post-Mao Era (1984), The Iron House: A Memoir of the Chinese Democracy Movement and the Tiananmen Massacre (1990) and translator of many works, including Su Tong, Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas (1993), Worlds of Modern Chinese Fiction: Short Stories and Novellas from the People’s Republic, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (editor and co-translator, 1991), and co-translator of Hsu Cho-yun, Rivers in Time: A Cultural History of China. His current project is a two-volume translation of Ge Zhaoguang, An Intellectual History of China: Knowledge, Thought and Belief Through 1895, co-translated with Josephine Chiu-Duke.

Published by

Transworld Publishers, 2011
Buy Book

Share

Read reviews from UK reading groups here

Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no one is bothered, except for a small circle of friends who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that has possessed the Chinese nation. When they kidnap a high-ranking official and force him to reveal all, what they learn – not only about their leaders, but also about their own people – stuns them to the core. It is a message that will rock the world. Terrifying methods of cunning, deception and terror are unveiled by the truth-seekers in this thriller-expose  of the Communist Party’s stranglehold on China today.

‘A fascinating tale of China just over the horizon’
The New Yorker

‘The hottest novel to come out of China this year’
Time Out Beijing

English PEN works in partnership with The Reading Agency to inspire more people to read more books in translation. By offering PEN supported titles through the Reading Groups for Everyone Initiative we have been able to reach readers around the country and get their feedback on the books we promote. We are very grateful to Transworld Publishers for donating reading group copies of The Fat Years.

Join our mailing list

Sign up to receive the latest English PEN news and events.

SIGN UP
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Partners
  • Jobs
  • Contact us

With thanks to our Core Funders

©1921 - 2023

English PEN is a company limited by guarantee number 5747142 (England & Wales) and a registered charity, number 1125610.

We use cookies to help us improve your experience on our website. By closing this notification or interacting with the website you agree to our use of cookies. ACCEPT Find out more
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT