In this prize-winning collection of short stories, Yiyun Li brings us a modern China facing up to a complex history of repression and guilt. In 'Extra', a Chinese woman, alone in middle age, befriends a young boy and we see how love begins to overcome the strictures that dominate their lives. In 'Immortality' a young man bears a striking resemblance to the Dictator, and so finds a strange kind of calling...From the bustling heart of Beijing and the barren expanse of Inner Mongolia to a fast-food restaurant in Chicago, Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history and culture intersect with personality to create fate. Revealing worlds both foreign and familiar, with heartbreaking honesty and in beautiful prose, this is a rich and astonishing collection from an original and important new writer.