Cocoon: Read the World A to Z: China

Travel the globe with the most influential voices from Argentina to Zambia! Read the World A to Z features translated novels from A to Z--one country for every letter of the alphabet. The third volume of the Read the World series takes you to China with Zhang Yueran's Cocoon, called a "luminous gateway into current Chinese fiction" by the Wall Street Journal.

"Cocoon is a stupendous novel, a beautiful and formidable achievement on the grandest scale. Its ruthless psychological realism is wondrously amplified by Zhang Yueran's magical powers of description. Zhang Yueran's scenes and images have an unworldly gleam of both hard-won insight and timeless truth. The novel is a triumph." --IAN McEWAN, author of the international bestseller Atonement

"Zhang dazzles with an intricately crafted web of secrets centered on two childhood friends in China. In lyrical prose, Zhang deeply humanizes her leads as they look to the past in an effort to understand themselves. It adds up to a remarkable and tragic story of family and community." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Cheng Gong and Li Jiaqi go way back. Both hailing from dysfunctional families, they grew up together in a Chinese provincial capital in the 1980s. Now, many years later, the childhood friends reunite and discover how much they still have in common. Both have always been determined to follow the tracks of their grandparents' generation to the heart of a mystery that perhaps should have stayed buried. What exactly happened during that rainy night in 1967, in the abandoned water tower? Zhang Yueran's layered and hypnotic prose reveals much about the unshakable power of friendship and the existence of hope. Hers is a unique fresh voice representing a new generation of important young writers from China, shedding a different light on the country's recent past.

Author: Zhang Yueran
Publisher: World Editions
Published: 10/06/2026
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.87lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.89d
ISBN: 9781642861778

About the Author
Zhang Yueran is one of China's most influential young writers. Her novel Cocoon sold more than 120,000 copies in China and has been translated into several languages. In France it was nominated for the Best Foreign Book Prize 2019 and won the Best Asian Novel of the Prix Transfuge 2019. Zhang has been chief editor of Newwriting since 2008 and teaches literature and creative writing at Renmin University in China. She was chosen by Asymptote as one of 20 Sinophone writers under 40 to look out for.

Jeremy Tiang has translated over twenty books from Chinese, including novels by Shuang Xuetao, Lo Yi-Chin, Yan Ge, Yeng Pway Ngon, Chan Ho-Kei, and Geling Yan. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. He also writes and translates plays. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in New York City.