Can Xue

Can Xue, whose real name is Deng Xiaohua, was born in 1953 in Changsha, Hunan, with ancestral roots in Leiyang, Hunan. She is a representative writer of contemporary Chinese avant-garde literature. She entered the literary scene in 1985 with the novel The Cabin on the Mountain, and has since written works including Yellow Mud Street, The Old Floating Cloud, Breakout Performance, and The Last Lover. Her works have been translated into many languages; she has received the U.S. Best Translated Book Award and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. Her writing often uses absurd, distorted, and nightmarish narration to portray individual loneliness and spiritual predicaments in reality, and her distinctive style has attracted attention both in China and abroad. The novel included here, Smoke City, is a social novel that continues her inquiry into human nature and the human condition. Public information is limited, and further biographical details are not included here.