Golden Age: A Novel [Hardcover]

Like a Chinese Kurt Vonnegut. By turns lyrical and satirical, Wang Xiaobo's sexual comedies set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution are as improbable as that genre sounds. His long overdue publication in English comes as a gift. Golden Age is funny and brave and profound.
—Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick

At the time Wang was writing, novels about the Cultural Revolution tended to be fairly conventional tales of how good people suffered nobly during this decade of madness. The system itself was rarely called into question. Wang’s book was radically different . . .  The idea of how to stand up to power underlies Golden Age.
—Ian Johnson, The New York Times Book Review

Like Gary Shteyngart or Michel Houellebecq, Wang Xiaobo is a Chinese literary icon whose satire forces us to reconsider the ironies of history.

“Apparently, there was a rumor that Chen Qingyang and I were having an affair. She wanted me to prove our innocence. I said, to prove our innocence, we must prove one of the following:
        1. Chen Qingyang is a virgin
        2. I was born without a penis.
Both of these propositions were hard to prove; therefore, we couldn’t prove our innocence. In fact, I was leaning more toward proving that we weren’t innocent.”
 
And so begins Wang Er’s story of his long affair with Chen Qinyang. Wang Er, a 21-year-old ox herder, is shamed by the local authorities and forced to write a confession for his crimes. Instead, he takes l3'