Frontier

Frontier

<div><p><b>New Novel from the Winner of the 2015 Best Translated Book Award</b></p><p>Introduction by Porochista Khakpour.</p><p>"One of the most raved-about works of translated fiction this year"―Jonathan Sturgeon, <I>Flavorwire</I></p><p><I>Frontier </I>opens with the story of Liujin, a young woman heading out on her own to create her own life in Pebble Town, a somewhat surreal place at the base of Snow Mountain where wolves roam the streets and certain enlightened individuals can see and enter a paradisiacal garden.</p><p>Exploring life in this city (or in the frontier) through the viewpoint of a dozen different characters, some simple, some profound, Can Xue's latest novel attempts to unify the grand opposites of life--barbarism and civilization, the spiritual and the material, the mundane and the sublime, beauty and death, Eastern and Western cultures.</p><p>A layered, multifaceted masterpiece from the 2015 winner of the Best Translated Book Award, <I>Frontier </I>exemplifies John Darnielle's statement that Can Xue's books read "as if dreams had invaded the physical world."</p><p><B>Can Xue </B>is a pseudonym meaning "dirty snow, leftover snow." She learned English on her own and has written books on Borges, Shakespeare, and Dante. Her publications in English include <I>The Embroidered Shoes</I>, <I>Five Spice Street</I>, <I>Vertical Motion</I>, and <I>The Last Lover</I>, which won the 2015 Best Translated Book Award for Fiction.</p><p><B>Karen Gernant </B>is a professor emerita of Chinese history at Southern Oregon University. She translates in collaboration with Chen Zeping.</p><p><B>Chen Zeping </B>is a professor of Chinese linguistics at Fujian Teachers' University, and has collaborated with Karen Gernant on more than ten translations.</p><p><b>Porochista Khakpour</b> is the author of two novels, <I>Sons and Other Flammable Objects</I> and <I>The Last Illusion</I>.</p></div>