![]() ![]() Likewise, Guo’s delightful phrase “Heavenly Bastard in the Sky” appears without explication. When she refers to “Longevity Noodles,” there’s no encyclopedia-type paragraph-as there often is in literature about other cultures-explaining the customs of the country. Even more remarkable, she does little cultural translating for the reader. Looking back on herself, she sees “a seventeen-year-old who thought that drinking a can of ice-cold Coke was the greatest thing ever.” As she moves to yet another run-down apartment, she says, “I’ve been blessed with cockroaches in every place I lived in Beijing, but it was in the Chinese Rose Garden that I was truly anointed.” Although Twenty Fragments was originally written in Chinese, then translated into English, it doesn’t read like a translation in fact, Guo rewrote in English on top of the translation, and her language is often startlingly sharp. Throughout, Guo infuses Fenfang’s voice with wry, self-mocking perspective. ![]()
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