The April 3rd Incident

In the late 1980s and early 1990s—before his celebrated novel To Live catapulted him to international fame—Yu Hua, along with other young Chinese writers, departed from conventional realism in favor of a surreal, boundary-pushing approach that reflected the zeitgeist of their rapidly changing nation and also showed the influence of Western icons such as Kafka and Borges. Now available in English for the first time, these early stories find Yu Hua masterfully guiding us from one fractured reality to another: “A History of Two People” traces the paths of a man and a woman who dream in parallel throughout their lives. “As the North Wind Howled” carries a case of mistaken identity to absurd and hilarious conclusions. And the title story follows an unforgettable narrator determined to unearth a conspiracy against him that may not exist. By turns daring, darkly comic, thought-provoking, and profound, The April 3rd Incident powerfully captures a singular moment in Chinese letters.