Looking Back on the Fat Years with Chan Koonchung

This critically acclaimed science-fiction novel follows protagonist Lao Chen as he excavates the complicated truth behind the glossy prosperity and contentment of the new China. In a review published in The Guardian, author and former Literary Festival speaker, Jonathan Fenby said: “The Fat Years remains valid because it is not simply a “what might happen” exercise in futurism. Its central conceit – that collective amnesia overtakes the entire country – is an all-encompassing metaphor for today’s looming superpower and the question that lies behind its material renaissance since the 1980s – namely, whether a booming economy and an increasingly free individual society can be contained within the political straitjacket of a one-party system that seeks to retain all the levers of power for itself.” The Fat Years has yet to be published in China. Join Chan for an unforgettable session on his work and his life as a Chinese writer banned on the Mainland.

Author Bio:

Chan Koonchung is a sinophone writer from Hong Kong and he now lives in Beijing. His novel “The Fat Years” has been translated into 14 languages. His latest novel is “The Unbearable Dreamworld of Champa the Driver” , now available in English. He is also the author of “Hong Kong Trilogy” and many non-fiction books including “My Generation of Hongkongers”, “Marxism and Literary Criticism”, “Notes on a Hybrid City”, “Hong Kong’s Unfinished Experiment” and “Chinese Celestial Imperialism and Hong Kong”.

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