After China (Paperback)

Mr You is a Chinese architect in his middle years, professionally successful but scarred by a complex past. His mother was killed during an insurrection in Shanghai, his father died in a house-fire under strange circumstances. A subsequent accident in a railway yard has left him both physically and psychologically damaged. All that was in the past, when he had a country. Now it is after China. 'For a book which takes loneliness and death for its themes, After China has unexpected reserves of warmth, affection and humour. Insisting on the erotic, it is surprisingly delicate, restrained and chaste. And for a work of such diverse and eclectic reference it is rewardingly resonant and interconnected. The whole novel is thus a brilliant feat of balance. After China is perhaps Castro's most immediately accessible and engaging work.' - Katharine England