Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Banquet Bug by Geling Yan The Banquet Bug. With The Banquet Bug, her first novel written originally in English (her previous novels have been translated) Geling Yan captivates once more. This is the fantastical tale of Dan Dong, an unemployed factory worker whose life takes a series of unexpected twists after he discovers that, by posing as a journalist, he can eat insanely gourmet meals for free at corporate and state-sponsored banquets. But the secrets he overhears at these events eventually lead Dan down a twisted, intrigue-laden path, and his subterfuge and his real identity become harder and harder to separate. When he becomes privy to a scandal that runs from the depths of society to its highest rungs, Dan must find a way to uncover the "corruption" without revealing the dangerous truth about himself. The New York Times - Ligaya Mishan. At a banquet hosted by a drug company, Dan dines on gelatin made of seahorses and bull penises (to boost virility) and frog uterus soup (an aphrodisiac). Like much of The Banquet Bug , the scene works splendidly as farce -- even as it arouses the nagging suspicion that it might not be so far-fetched after all. Yan Geling 严歌苓. Yan Geling is one of the most acclaimed contemporary novelists and screenwriters writing in the Chinese language today and a well-established writer in English. Born in Shanghai, she served with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), starting at age 12 as a dancer in an entertainment troupe. She published her first novel in 1986, and ever since has produced a steady stream of novels, short stories, novellas, essays and scripts. Her best- known novels in English are The Banquet Bug ( The Uninvited in its UK edition - written directly in English) and The Lost Daughter of Happiness , (translated by Cathy Silber) both published by Hyperion in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK. She has also published a novella and short story collection called White Snake and Other Stories , translated by Lawrence A. Walker and published by Aunt Lute Books. You can find more information at this site. Several of Yan Geling's works have been adapted for film, including internationally distributed films Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (directed by Joan Chen) and Siao Yu (directed by Sylvia Chang; script co-written by Ang Lee), and Chinese director Zhang Yimou ( To Live , Raise the Red Lantern ) has acquired the film rights of one of her novellas. She has also written numerous scripts based on her own and other authors' work, both in English and Chinese, including most recently a script for Chinese director Chen Kaige on the classic Peking opera star Mei Lanfang. To date she has published over 20 books in various editions in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, the UK and elsewhere; has won around 30 literary and film awards; and has had her work adapted or written scripts for over a dozen film, TV and radio works. Her works have been translated into Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Thai, and translations are currently in preparation in Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian and Vietnamese. The English rights to Yan Geling's novels are represented by Peony Literary Agency. Foreign rights sold (as of Dec 2008): BANQUET BUG:US – Hyperion; Czech – Kniha Zlin Euro; Romania – Minerva; UK - Faber & Faber; Israel – Yediot Aharonot; Thailand – Sangdad; Vietnam – Phuongnam LOST DAUGHTER OF HAPPINESS: US – Hyperion; The Netherlands - De Bezige Bij; French - Plon; Portugal – ASA; Hungary – Ulpius; Romania – Minerva; UK - Faber & Faber; Vietnam - Security Publishing THE NINTH WIDOW: Vietnam - Vietnam Culture & Information; Italy – Rizzoli; Spain - Santillana SUIZI STORIES: Vietnam, Bach Viet Books WHITE SNAKE AND OTHER STORIES: US – Aunt Lute Books; Japan – Kadokawa Shoten; Vietnam – Bach Viet; Thailand – Nanmeebooks Publications (“Siao Yu” story only) Yan Geling is the featured author in READ PAPER REPUBLIC, week 23, 19 November 2015. ISBN 13: 9781401374037. Geling Yan captivates readers once more in her breakthrough novel. This is the fantastical tale of Dan Dong, an unemployed factory worker whose life takes a series of unexpected twists after he discovers that, by posing as a journalist, he can eat exquisite gourmet meals for free at state- sponsored banquets. But the secrets he overhears at these events eventually lead Dan down a twisted, intrigue-laden path, and his subterfuge and his real identity become harder and harder to separate. When he becomes privy to a scandal that runs from the depths of society to its highest rungs, Dan must find a way to uncover the corruption without revealing the dangerous truth about himself. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Geling Yan was born in Shanghai and began writing in the late 1970s as a journalist. Her first novel was published in China in 1985. Following the Tiananmen Square massacre, she left China for the United States. Since then she has written many short stories, including one that was made into the award-winning film Xiu Xiu The Sent-Down Girl . She lives in San Francisco and Africa. From Publishers Weekly : Yan, whose short fiction was the basis for the movie Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl , offers a pointed critique of capitalism's rise in her native China. A multifaceted mistaken-identity farce, Yan's novel chronicles the adventures of Dan Dong, a laid-off factory worker who wanders into a lavish banquet where journalists are wined and dined and receive "money for your troubles" fees for listening to—and hopefully reporting on—the presentations of corporations and charities. Dan quickly orders business cards that "said he was a reporter from some Internet news site," and hops aboard the banquet gravy train. Yan revels in the absurdity of her premise, and her over-the-top descriptions of banquet fare underscore her outrage at the few who gorge themselves on "animals from remote mountains and forests" while millions starve. The story changes gears, though, when Dan's reportage leads him into a dangerous, far-reaching scandal and he is arrested during a crackdown on "banquet bugs." Yan's concept is clever, but wooden dialogue and some awkward descriptions make it clear that English is not her mother tongue, though this also leads to some seductively nuanced moments ("He smells rather than hears her words carried on her smoky breath") that hint at her enormous potential. (July 11) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. The Banquet Bug by Geling Yan. I found this book, The Banquet Bug by Geling Yan, via the list of Chinese must-reads published to coincide with the Beijing Olympics. I chose this one to buy (first) mainly because it deals with journalism and food, at least in part. I found it quite peculiar that the copyright page of the book doesn’t list a date — not even a year — of publication and/or copyright. Isn’t that weird? OK, well, I guess I’ll try to understand if you all don’t peruse the copyright page of each book as you begin to read it. Per Amazon, the book was published August 7, 2007. However, it was named “Best Book” for 2006 in the adult fiction category by the Chinese-American Librarians’ Association, per the Yan’s website. And it was written in English (not translated into English), so that’s not the source of the discrepancy. It shouldn’t be this hard to learn when a book was published! This post about her name is interesting to me, and perhaps to you as well. Another aspect of the physical book that kept drawing my attention was the margins. The margins are small, 1 centimeter on the top and both sides. On the bottom of the page, there appears to be a little more breathing room — the text stops an inch before the edge of the page — but it’s really not much. Below the page number, which is in a rectangular visual element, the page lasts for less than 1 centimeter. Chapters are marked not by a new page, let alone by a new right-side page, but by a visual geographic block 1.5 cm tall. The front matter seems to mostly have the space usually allotted to it, but the author’s bio, photo and all, is printed on the inside of the back cover. Strange! I was surprised, saddened by the extramarital encounters. And by the derogatory language, a bit. I was intrigued by the story. The pretend journalist, Dan Dong, lives in fear, on edge. This makes sense, particularly in a climate where he’s learned other banquet bugs exist and are being discovered in their deception and punished. But his trepidation continues after he’s mostly an actual journalist, at least in my mind. I was also surprised by his reaction to people who, hearing he’s a journalist, pin their hopes on him for relief from the injustices of their lives. People do approach journalists with tales such as these, throughout the world. The thing is, usually the journalist can help. I didn’t expect his sense of hopelessness. The book portrayed well the journalist’s feeling that, as Yan states it, the reporter acts as a vessel, holding all the misery they encounter: “He hates being a container into which these miserable guys spit and vomit their bitterness and sadness.” And later: “Finding pathetic characters and unearthing their misery: that’s what a newsman does.” He also lacks the sympathy, though, that is typical of a new reporter. He’s selfish. From page 170: Why the hell should he want to know that so-and-so’s mother is waiting desperately for money to have her belly cut open? Hasn’t he seen enough of country wives, huge with pregnancy, tending fields because their husbands have drifted elsewhere to work, promising to send money home? He was having a perfect day when he came out here with Little Plum, and now he is upset.