
Title: STRANGE BEASTS OF CHINA
Author: YAN GE
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DESCRIPTION:
In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks.
Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self.
Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love, and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.
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MY REVIEW:
Author Yan Ge is a wonder.
STRANGE BEASTS OF CHINA is high on my top ten books of 2021 List.
This fabulously imagined reality takes place in China in the city of Yong’an. This city is the home of several different types of beasts who live alongsidehumans.
Each “type” can be distinguished by specific body characteristics and/or by where and how they live. However, the powers that be want to know more. So, our Narrator, a cryptozoologist, is hired to dig deeper than anyone ever has before, and to learn the stories of these enigmatic creatures.
As she begins to learn more about them, she finds herself becoming deeper and deeper enmeshed into the world of beasts and away from that of humans.
This is a MUST READ story that you will want to read over and over again. I have both read the book, and listened to the audiobook and both experiences were sensational.
The narration was PERFECTION. Her sense of pacing and her ability to convey emotion through her voice made listening to the audiobook an absolute delight.
Author Yan Ge writes in Chinese and fortunately for those of us who cannot read Chinese, this book has been translated into English. I sincerely hope that more of this author’s work is translated and published here in North America.
I rate STRANGE BEASTS OF CHINA as 6 out of 5 Stars ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this phenomenal audiobook.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Yan Ge is the pen name of Chinese writer Dai Yuexing.
Yan Ge was born in Sichuan, China in 1984. She is a fiction writer in both Chinese and English.
Her first short story collection was published in China when she was seventeen.
She is the author of thirteen books, including six novels.
She has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Maodun Literature Prize (Best Young Writer).
She was named by People’s Literature magazine as one of twenty future literature masters in China.
Her work has been translated into English, French and German, among other languages. The English translation of her latest novel The Chilli Bean Paste Clan was published in 2018.
Yan Ge started to write in English in 2016. Since then, her writing has been published in the New York Times, The Stinging Fly, the Irish Times, TLS, Stand Magazine, Brick and Being Various: New Irish Short Stories.
She was the recipient of the UEA International Award 2018/19. Her debut English-language story collection Elsewhere will be published by Faber (UK) and Scribner (US) in 2023. She lives in Norwich with her husband and son.
To read a fantastic in-depth interview with YAN GE, visit The China Project website by clicking on the photo below:
To learn more about this author visit the following links: