Ek Asadharan Antarwarta

An Extraordinary Interview is a stunning collection of flash fiction by the most celebrated Chinese storyteller, Lao Ma. Replete with a bizarre and biting sense of humor, Ma narrates the unsung anthem of lower middle class characters in small Chinese towns struggling to find space in a fast-changing world. Like Jincai, his character who finds a clue to a treasure connecting him to the love of his life while garbage picking, Ma in his effortless flash fiction rummages his world full of idiots, delinquents and twisted characters to discover a treasure of memorable stories likely to haunt you in the years to come. The ugliest woman in town, the struggle of idiotic Yi family during the Cultural Revolution, the spine-chilling life struggle of big-headed Dongguan You, a visit to the narrator?s birthplace, Rabbit Hole, with its precarious, annoying characters leading sad, sardonic lives, the Dong Family with the absurd grabbing test that defines their lives but defies the very logic of progress, these stories unleash the absurdities of the lower strata of civilian lives in small towns left behind in a rush to grab the new-found affluence. Narrated with the miraculous strength of the Chinese fairy tales, these stories are a welcome addition to the vital literature being produced in the contemporary China today. Born in 1962 in Dalian, Liaoning Province, Lao Ma (Ma Junjie), a celebrated Chinese short story writer and a novelist.