Beijing North

Beijing North is a collection by the writer Beijia (real name He Xiaomin), published by China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Publishing House in September 2014. The 311-page volume gathers several novellas, short stories, and one play written in recent years, including "Mire," "Open-Air Performance," "Dog Mom and Dog Dad," "In the Ward," "All a Show Inside and Out," "Fierce Killing," "The Wound," and "The Elder," as well as the four-act tragicomedy "Dust," with two appendices, "Where Does Life Live" and "Drama for Reading." Most of these works are set in Beijing and depict ordinary people living in the present: in office towers, stairwells, hospital wards, and on stage, tossed between daily chores, social ties, and the pressure to make a living, revealing the trivia and truth of urban daily life. The author's prose does not rely on intense plot conflict but probes characters' inner lives within everyday situations, writing their hesitation, hardness, and unspoken weakness, thereby reflecting personal spiritual states and social reality. The included play Dust also adds a theatrical dimension beyond fiction, while the appendices set out the author's thoughts on life and drama. Overall, this is a collection that sinks to the bottom of life with a restrained tone, suited to readers interested in Beijing urban writing and contemporary novellas and short stories, to be read slowly.