How the Ceremony Ends/The Water Demon (Storycuts)

Two short stories: a folklorist collecting stories enrages some villagers; and a little girl on a bridge shouts warnings about the water demon.

Born in 1963 in Suzhou and now living in Beijing with his family, Su Tong is one of China's most celebrated bestselling authors, shooting to international fame in 1993 when Zhang Yimou's film of his novella Raise the Red Lantern was nominated for an Oscar. His first short story collection Madwoman on the Bridge was published by Black Swan in 2008.

In 'How the Ceremony Ends', it was last winter that the folklorist paid his visit to the village of Eight Pines. He wanted to collect folk tales and customs, to re-enact the ceremonies of life and death that only old men still remember. But somehow he managed to provoke the villagers. 
 
In 'The Water Demon', at the beginning, no-one noticed the little girl on the bridge. No-one knew what she was doing; she just stood and watched. She would call out loudly, 'Here comes the water demon! Get out of the water or he will get you by the feet!' and tear away out of sight. Then, one day, there was no little girl on the bridge. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Dance of Heartbreak/The Diary for August (Storycuts)

Two short stories: a boy and girl who was like 'a little child of glass'; and a young boy, dripping wet from the swimming pool, has caused a disaster.

In 'Dance of Heartbreak', something happened to a young boy in Grade 4, at Red Flag Elementary School; but even today the whole affair remains fresh in his mind. He'd never met another girl like her; she was a little child of glass, beautiful in her sorrow when she ran to centre stage. For him, she was an archetype. 
 
In 'The Diary for August', the inspector looked at the suspect who had been brought in for the incident at the city wall. He was fourteen or fifteen, dripping wet from the swimming pool where they had found him, and both his legs were trembling. It looked like he knew he had caused a disaster. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Goddess Peak/The Q of Hearts (Storycuts)

Two short stories: a love triangle aboard a steamboat; and a dystopian portrait of a childhood during the cultural revolution.

In 'Goddess Peak', Miaoyue and Li Yong were almost the last two passengers aboard the steamboat to Goddess Peak - them and Li Yong's friend Mr Cui. Miaoyue found Mr Cui taller and better built than she'd imagined, and also a little younger and more handsome. For some reason, this irritated her. 
 
In 'The Q of Hearts', when the boy found the Queen of Hearts missing from his deck of cards, he immediately assumed that someone had stolen it. It was 1969, and those cards were his only toy. He searched everywhere for a new one - but only found things to frighten him. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Atmospheric Pressure (Storycuts)

A stay at a hostel brings up old associations.

The train was late, and the wind was blowing Meng's coat open in the snow. With no sign of his cousin, he needed somewhere to stay the night. An old man enticed him to a second-rate hostel, and despite his annoyance, Meng couldn't shake the feeling that he'd seen this place, and the old man, before. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Home in May (Storycuts)

Visiting an old neighbourhood unearths memories of the past.

Yongshan is taking her son back to Licheng to visit relatives, and to see the town where she grew up. But when they get there, all she could find were desolate houses. Even the people on the street seemed not to recognise her. But then, in the rubble of her old neighbourhood, Yongshan finds something to grab hold of - a memento of the past. 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Madwoman on the Bridge (Storycuts)

A classic story of madness and lost civilisations.

The madwoman was wearing a white velvet cheongsam. Standing on the bridge, she revelled in her own faded splendour. Normal people pay no attention to madwomen, but one woman from Shaoxing stayed on the bridge that afternoon to talk to this one; what was she coveting? 
 
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

Su Tong

Howard Goldblatt

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose

What I admire most is Su Tong's style...His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent

Powerful and elegant ...the world he so vividly depicts has the timelessness of a classical Chinese court painting

There is something soothing and insistent about the sound and feel of Su Tong's writing.Chinese customs and characters make the mood strange and different....Language, its feel and construction, flows like the river into the reader's imagination... [More] twists, turns and tragedies hold the reader's attention right to the end. The writing is superb, the word pictures of the river and its people memorable. And Yes, it could make great cinema

The major achievement of this novel is Su Tong's decision to forgo his strength as a prose stylist and settle for a familiar story told in a familiar language. Despite the tendency of the younger generation to dismiss the cultural revolution as a bygone era, this recent past, with its cruelties and absurdities, still lives in the nation's memory. 
At his best, Su Tong is able to catch the tragedy and comedy of that time, using a highly political language: when the birthmark on Ku Wenxue's bottom disqualifies him as the martyr's son, the whole town goes through a craze of examining one another's bottoms in the toilets of municipal baths, while Dongliang, our private and sensitive narrator, reports, "I tightened my belt and heightened my vigilance," - a line that playfully combines two slogans from Mao's era. 
Dialogues filled with political clichés of the time are the highlight of the novel. In an extremely poignant exchange - both tragic and absurd - towards the end of the novel, the narrator, in order to steal the martyr's memorial stone, has a long argument with the town's idiot, who has for decades considered himself to be the real son of the martyr.

Su Tong masterfully skates over the political implications of his story while exposing, not with a bludgeon (often the style of Chinese novels) but with scalpel-like precision, the social faultlines that are used by the Party to guarantee what it calls 'stability'...i got a lot out of this story but kept in mind what Su Tong didn't dare say out loud

Tong paints with broad brush-strokes and the humour is rough, raw and irreverent, but there is genuine sympathy for the maverick whose impetuous behavious can only bring trouble in a prescriptive, claustrophobic world

Disgraced Secretary Ku has been banished from the Party - it has been officially proved he does not have a fish-shaped birthmark on his bottom and is therefore not the son of a revolutionary martyr, but the issue of a river pirate and a prostitute. Mocked by the citizens of Milltown, Secretary Ku leaves the shore for a new life among the boat people on a fleet of industrial barges. Refusing to renounce his high status, he maintains a distance - with Dongliang, his teenage son - from the gossipy lowlifes who surround him. 
 
One day a feral little girl, Huixian, arrives looking for her mother, who has jumped to her death in the river. The boat people, and especially Dongliang, take her to their hearts. But Huixian sows conflict wherever she goes, and soon Dongliang is in the grip of an obsession for her. He takes on Life, Fate and the Party in the only way he knows . . .

Su Tong

Praise for The Boat to Redemption

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose

What I admire most is Su Tong's style...His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent

Powerful and elegant ...the world he so vividly depicts has the timelessness of a classical Chinese court painting

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose

What I admire most is Su Tong's style...His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent

Powerful and elegant ...the world he so vividly depicts has the timelessness of a classical Chinese court painting

Su Tong writes beautiful, dangerous prose

What I admire most is Su Tong's style...His strokes are restrained but merciless. He is a true literary talent

Powerful and elegant ...the world he so vividly depicts has the timelessness of a classical Chinese court painting

Books by Su Tong

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