{"product_id":"9781925410792","title":"The Stolen Bicycle","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eSix-time Winner of the China Times Open Book Award and ‘Author of the Year’, Eslite Bookstore \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA writer embarks on an epic quest in search of his missing father’s stolen bicycle and soon finds himself caught up in the strangely intertwined stories of Lin Wang, the oldest elephant who ever lived, the soldiers who fought in the jungles of South-East Asia during the Second World War and the secret worlds of the butterfly handicraft makers and antique bicycle fanatics of Taiwan.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e The Stolen Bicycle is both a majestic historical novel and a profound, startlingly intimate meditation on memory, family and home.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAward-winning novelist Wu Ming-Yi is also an artist, designer, photographer, literary professor, butterfly scholar, environmental activist, traveller and blogger, and is widely considered the leading writer of his generation in his native Taiwan.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA long-time resident of Taipei, \u003cb\u003eDarryl Sterk\u003c\/b\u003e has interests in Taiwan’s local literature and indigenous cultures. He translated the first of Wu Ming-Yi’s novels to be published in English, \u003ci\u003eThe Man with the Compound Eyes\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePRAISE FOR WU MING-YI AND THE STOLEN BICYCLE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘A work of astonishing energy, in which Wu beautifully touches on loss, life and death, fate and destiny, establishing emotional connections between memory and objects, and between the natural world and war... a novel that provides comfort and reconciliation from a wounded past.’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThinking Taiwan\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘The novel, inspired by his love for bicycles and Taiwanese history, brings readers back to a simpler time when life moved more slowly and people spent more time face-to-face with friends and neighbors. Riding a bike allowed people to appreciate and digest the details of the world around them.’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTaipei Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘A profoundly moving novel, such is the power of words and depth of feeling by Taiwanese author Wu Ming-Yi…He turns events into linguistic gold with his poetic, dreamlike language.’ \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eGood Reading\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘A visionary ride through flame-scorched lands and machine-clutching trees and metamorphoses into metal and earth…\"World is crazier and more of it than we think,\/Incorrigibly plural\", Louis MacNeice wrote…Multiply that by 10 or so and you get some sense of Wu’s astonishing, often-affecting kaleidoscope.’ \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eNZ Listener\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003ePRAISE FOR THE MAN WITH THE COMPOUND EYES\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘Brilliant. . . . A haunting and evocative tale, beautifully told.’ \u003cb\u003eHugh Howey, author of \u003ci\u003eWool\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘We haven’t read anything like this novel. Ever. South America gave us magical realism—what is Taiwan giving us? A new way of telling our new reality, beautiful, entertaining, frightening, preposterous, true. . . . Wu Ming-Yi treats human vulnerability and the world’s vulnerability with fearless tenderness.’ \u003cb\u003eUrsula K. Le Guin\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘A striking book. . . . It is science fiction . . . in the way that the best Margaret Atwood books are science fiction. . . .  I couldn’t put it down.’ \u003cb\u003eJason Sheehan, NPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘Lyrical, haunting. . . . A heady mix of science fiction, fantasy, environmental fable and magical realism, the author had to create a genre entirely new for this singular, captivating book.’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePittsburgh Post-Gazette\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘Astonishing. . . . A wonderful novel.’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Independent (London)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘An earnest, politically conscious novel, anchored in ecological concerns and Taiwanese identity. . . . Beyond the book’s ecological and scientific attributes, you can see a deft novelist’s hand at work.’ \u003cb\u003eTash Aw, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Guardian  (London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Imaginative and moving.’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e ‘[Ming-Yi is] reminiscent of Haruki Murakami, twisting the dreamlike into the curiously credible.’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement  (London)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Rich, dense and dripping with life. The book sings in the key of fable, but with the timbre of reality.’ \u003cb\u003eCharles Yu, author of \u003ci\u003eHow to Live Safely in a Fictional Universe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘An entrancing, multi-faceted elegy. . . . [Ming-Yi writes with] a poet’s approach. . . . Full of painful, wonderful beauty.’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Rumpus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Beautifully written and beautifully translated. . . . [Ming-Yi] guides us to see the entirety of experience as bumping flotsam in an unending ocean of life colliding and making a mess of things or making something new. . . . Lyric, simple, soft, the story crests and recedes and comes back again.’ \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Bloomington Sun-Current\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘[Ming-Yi’s] rollercoaster of a story is about wilderness, wildness, wonderment, love. . . . [\u003ci\u003eThe Man with the Compound Eyes\u003c\/i\u003e includes] perhaps the best writing to ever come out of a Taiwan novel.’ \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTaipei Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘A gift. . . . Ming-Yi is a naturalist as well as a storyteller, and it is perhaps his greatest achievement that this novel creates a sense of solidarity not only between his human characters, but also between [the] humans and the animals and plants he describes with such fidelity.’ \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eFullStop\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Offering a heady dose of realism, surrealism, and magic realism, with several shots of allegory, award-winning Chinese author Wu [Ming-Yi] offers a work for ‘literary fiction’ readers, but not in the snobbish sense. It’s really for any curious, intelligent reader.’ \u003cb\u003eSTARRED review, \u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Text Publishing Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47141252661488,"sku":"9781925410792","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781925410792_p0.jpg?v=1763634604","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781925410792","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}