Village of stone

I see myself on a boat, steering far out to sea, to the seas of the Village of Stone, and as the waves grow clearer in my memory, I find myself moving farther away from this enormous city, from these enormous buildings and crowds -Coral and her Frisbee-obsessed boyfriend Red live on the ground floor of a cramped tower block in the megalopolis that is modern-day Beijing.

The epitome of disaffected, unfulfilled youth, their already fragile existence is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious fishy package - as the smells of the sea flood her home, Coral is transported back to a traumatic childhood dominated by solitude, fear and shame. Born on a boat during a storm, and orphaned soon after, Coral was raised by silent grandparents amongst the stern and superstitious fishermen of the remote Village of Stone.

Shunned from birth as a bringer of ill fortune, and exposed to the malevolent, threatening forces of a closed-off society, Coral immersed herself in the minutiae of the landscape around her. At fifteen, she escaped to the big city and shut the door on the darkness of her past. As the narrative darts between the forbidding sprawl of Beijing and the hypnotic rhythms of a tiny coastal village, our narrator struggles to navigate a path through painful and hidden memories of a time spent helpless, cold and alone.

But when an old, sick man appears on Coral's doorstep, the past and present shockingly converge, and she is forced to confront the secrets of her history in order to realise her dreams for the future.

Beautifully poetic and lyrical, haunting yet infused with a quiet and gentle humour, Village of Stone is a startling and bewitching novel about memory, loss, and the search for redemption, from one of contemporary China's freshest voices.