How a Chinese woman gets pregnant
A Novel
32 years old and still not pregnant? That’s an intolerable situation! This at least is the view of the parents of Tingyi, a Chinese photographer who lives in Berlin with her German boyfriend, Robert. While the young couple pay them a new year visit in Canton, her parents try their best to get a grandchild as soon as possible – to Robert’s, but not Tingyi’s, delight. However, a heated family conflict arising over another matter and the fact that Robert commits one cultural gaffe after another give her a breathing space: Time to deliberate over the hopes and desires which she herself holds for her own future.
A mischievously-narrated novel about a German-Chinese love relationship, heteronomy and self-determination plus the different conceptions of partnership and family in East and West. Luo Lingyuan masters the art of portraying her figures with light brush strokes, so you have no other choice but to be delighted by them, to suffer and to laugh with them.
(eBook), ca. 190 pages – Language: German – ♦ Order
The Stars of Shenzhen
A Novel
Dai Xingkong is only in his mid-thirties but is already one of China’s wealthiest private entrepreneurs. His company Tenglong, which simultaneously develops software programs and natural remedies, is growing as fast as Dai’s ambitions, symbolized by the new company center, which he is building higher and higher. Soon, however, counterfeit products, corruption and intrigue increasingly cause him problems. After several personal twists of fate Dai falls into a dangerous downward spiral. Until, that is, he receives help from a completely unexpected quarter: from the hitherto unseen women.
“The Stars of Shenzhen” draws a multi-faceted picture of China’s first founding generation, its values, aspirations and struggles. Thus, it reads like an economic crime thriller. For everyone who wants to understand China’s remarkable upswing and its social impacts, this book is a must-read.
(eBook) – ca. 400 pages – Language: German –
The Chinese Delegation
A Novel
Sanya, a young Chinese guide living in Berlin, is used to difficult tourists, but these delegation members from her homeland put her nerves to the test. On the joint bus tour through six European countries, it is not only mutual prejudices about China and Europe that collide. The different personalities of the group, especially the despotic head of the delegation, Commander Wang, also cause a lot of tension. He wants to use the trip to find a foreign architect for a construction project in China but is more than choosy. Until almost all the group members return home satisfied at the end of the trip, Sanya must use a lot of tactical skill and often bite the bullet.
Luo Lingyuan’s novel, set in the early 2000s, tells about typical misunderstandings and differences between German and Chinese culture in an exciting and at the same time humorous way. But also about the fact that a better mutual understanding is possible at any time, assuming intellectual openness.
(eBook) – ca. 258 pages – Language: German – ♦ Order
Now you’re flying from the fifth floor for my son!
Stories
Eleven disturbing stories from China with an irresistible pull. Stories about a country in transition, still largely characterised by lack of prospects, poverty and social insecurity. At the book’s heart are lowly employees, entrepreneurs, farmers, students or civil servants. They all live in a society where most people are completely abandoned to the whims of the police and the authorities as well as to the coldness and selfishness of their fellow human beings. The tales were based on images and memories from the author’s childhood and youth, which she has interwoven in the stories with an air of sophistication. Although the book, which won Luo Lingyuan the 2007 ›Adelbert-von-Chamisso Sponsorship Prize‹, flashes with occasional moments of hope, it is not really suitable bedtime reading, requiring as it does a steady nerve.
(eBook) – ca. 200 pages – Language: German – 4,99 ♦ Order
Night swimming in the Rhine
Stories
All happy relationships are alike, all unlucky relationships have their own misfortune. Following this motto, Luo Lingyuan tells five stories of mostly young Chinese women in Germany: a fashion designer, two students, an employee of a shipping company and an actress. Though they have found a (German) partner, they are still yearning for a fulfilled and lasting love. The obstacles they encounter in seeking a place for themselves in the alien country and society include not only the more or less hidden differences between the two cultures, but also jealousy, infidelity or the reckless egoism of men. Things however do not always stay the way they are. In their pursuit of happiness and self-realization some of the weak and passive seeming women develop unimagined powers.
Translated by Axel Kassing. ♦ (eBook) – ca. 400 pages – Language: German
5,30 ♦ Order