Ghost Cities (Siang Lu, UQP)

Recently fired from his translating job at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney for lying about his translation skills and using Google Translate to do his job, Xiang Lu is a #BadChinese. However, all hope is not lost, as film director Baby Bao invites him to work in the infamous Chinese ghost city of Port Man Tou. This one narrative transforms into a labyrinth of narratives as author Siang Lu draws on Chinese myth, history and the uninhabited megacities of China to produce a humorous and satirical commentary on geopolitics, contemporary life, art and work. In Ghost Cities, everything is connected. Xiang’s move to Port Man Tou is paralleled with tales from an imagined Imperial City and its paranoid Emperor, and the reader is taken on an absurd journey between the past and present, reality and simulation. Lu’s debut, The Whitewash, won the 2021 Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer and the 2023 ABIAs Audiobook of the Year, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 Multicultural NSW Award. Ghost Cities once again showcases Lu’s talent for imagination, comedy and cultural criticism. Strange and inventive, Ghost Cities is an ambitious novel of epic proportions and firmly places Lu as one of Australia’s most exciting new writers. Fans of The Whitewash will delight in this new novel, as will readers of Haruki Murakami, Italo Calvino and Yan Ge.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Anthea Yang is a Melbourne-based writer and editor. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Friday Unlocked reviews Reviews Think Australian top reviews