A raw deal can leave you dead in the water

*The life of a country bumpkin is worth no more than a melon?

The boat-dwellers upriver have been punting watermelons down to the market by Tiexing bridge for as long as the townsfolk can remember. A precarious relationship at the best of times, things quickly turn sour when a peddler turns up dead, prompting a pitched battle between fruit vendors and their urban clients.

In the uneasy peace that follows, a forlorn, elderly mother looks to sail their family's livelihood home. But after the pandemonium, no one is sure where her dead son’s barge ended up. How much help can she expect from a town still reeling from rioting and mass arrests?

Cruelty and kindness are interwoven in award-winning writer Su Tong’s new collection of short stories, written in a characteristically surreal mode that is both nightmarish and lyrical, reminiscent of a bad dream yet also joyful and hopeful.

"These tales… seem magical because they are so realistic… we wish we could stay longer in this expansive world" - Anthony Tao, The World of Chinese

"Seasoned with clever details, wry asides and entertaining bit parts, Midnight Stories has an earthy appeal that disguises its underlying sophistication." - Rónán Hession, Review 31

Su Tong rose to international acclaim after Raise the Red Lantern, a film adaptation of his book Wives and Concubines, won the 1993 BAFTA for best non-English language film. He was joint winner of the 2015 Mao Dun Literature Prize, and his earlier novel The Boat to Redemption won the Man Asia Literature Prize in 2009. Honey Watson is a science fiction writer and translator living in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is a translator of both fiction and non-fiction from Mandarin into English, holding degrees from University College London and Peking University, Beijing. Her debut novel, Lessons in Birdwatching, was released by Angry Robot books in August 2023.