Buch, Englisch, 576 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm
A Novel
Buch, Englisch, 576 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm
Reihe: Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan
ISBN: 978-0-231-21767-5
Verlag: Columbia University Press
In December 1941, Japanese troops landed on the northern coast of Borneo and began a brutal three-year, eight-month occupation. Set in a forgotten theater of World War II, The Crossing of the Boars is a gripping magical-realist tale of a multiethnic village fighting for survival.
Opening years after the war, with the Village of the Boars enveloped in wildfire smoke and confronted with a puzzling suicide, Zhang Guixing’s novel immerses readers in a tropical society plagued by violence. Once overrun with wild boars, Krokop finds itself overrun with Japanese soldiers, who prove harder to expel. The bloodshed of the initial invasion sparks a protracted guerilla resistance led by such characters as Boar King Chu, Oddball Zhung, Turtle Tsin, Red-Face Guan, Flat-Nose Chiew, and Skinny Shim. As the atrocities of the “devil” invaders mount, the jungle takes its own toll with wildfires, headhunters, crocodile attacks, macaque wars, and visitations by the vampire Pontianak. A phantasmagoria of jungle shadows, yokai demons, and opium hallucinations make the hunters and the hunted alike unable to distinguish friend from foe, human from beast, and self from other.
The Crossing of the Boars is a stylistic masterpiece, a dazzling mix of ecological fantasy and labyrinthine mystery. Celebrated for its linguistic virtuosity reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez, William Faulkner, James Joyce, and Salman Rushdie, Zhang Guixing’s magnum opus is an epic work of historical fiction.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
Introduction, by Christopher Rea
List of Characters
The Crossing of the Boars, by Zhang Guixing
1. Father’s Feet
2. Masks
3. Toys
4. Parang
5. River Thunder
6. Orang Minyak
7. Yoto
8. Fui-tsiang
9. Ho Rhun
10. Black Bands
11. White Stork
12. A Gift from the Gods
13. Yamizaki’s List
14. Pontianak
15. Whitey
16. The Man with Severed Arms
17. Yoshino’s Mirror
18. Chu Tai-di’s Stilt House
19. Stillness
20. Emily’s Photograph
21. Headless Riders
22. Under the Upas Tree
23. On the Hillside
24. The Crossing of the Boars
25. In Search of Emily
Notes
