Today I'm talking about a book called Historias del extrarradio , published by Automàtica Editorial. The author is Xu Zechen, a Chinese writer who has a younger and more current voice than the authors you usually find on this blog, such as Yu Hua or Yan Lianke .

I had already had my first contact with this author when I read Running through Beijing in English. I remember that reading it left me with a slightly strange feeling, perhaps because of the translation. I often find that translations from Chinese to English are not very flexible, a bit garbled, and on that occasion it made the text seem more like a documentary than a literary work. In that case, the story focused on characters who sold fake CDs and the language didn't really give me much. On the other hand, this Spanish edition of Historias del extrarradio has convinced me much more and has reconciled me with the author.

The struggle for survival in marginal Beijing

In this book, Xu Zechen tells the story of Mu Yu, a seventeen-year-old boy from a small village. Like so many other young Chinese, Mu Yu seeks to make a life for himself in the big city (in this case, Beijing), where in theory there are more opportunities. The problem is that in China, changing residence is highly regulated and moving from rural to urban to the wild means becoming, in practice, an illegal citizen.

So, Mu Yu settles in Beijing and lives in a small house with several companions who are also in a precarious situation. His work is curious and clandestine: putting up advertisements everywhere to promote his uncle's business, who is a document forger. The book is built through prints and stories that have Mu Yu as a common link and that are not independent stories, but must be read all of them to understand this choral chronicle about urban marginality.

I think one of the reasons I liked this book so much is the translation by Belén Cuadra Mora . It is so well done that it reads with total fluidity, as if it were the original text (yes, that's what they teach us in college, but it's not always achieved). Thanks to this rich and elaborate style, we enter a Beijing full of street vendors, characters on the margins of the system and dangerous situations that show the less friendly side of Chinese growth.

Conclusion

"Historias del extrarradio" is a very vivid portrait of the Chinese capital. If you are planning to go there or you like urban geography, I recommend reading it with Google Maps next to it, as the author mentions specific streets and neighborhoods that will help you situate yourself in the plot. In fact, it was like going back there!

In short, it is a highly recommended read to discover a young and powerful voice in current Chinese literature that knows how to explain social reality through quality fiction.