Yu Hua’s City of Fiction is a haunting meditation on displacement, survival, and the elusive nature of belonging. Set against the seismic social changes of early 20th-century China, this quietly powerful novel paints a world both immediate and dreamlike. Translated with finesse by Todd Foley, the book feels timeless, yet achingly human — a testament to Yu Hua’s standing as one of China’s most vital contemporary voices.
Known for his internationally acclaimed works like To Live and China in Ten Words, Yu Hua here returns with a narrative that blurs the line between myth and memory, exploring the inexorable march of time through a deeply personal lens. City of Fiction is less about a literal city and more about the emotional landscapes people carry within them — and often lose.
Overview: A Man, A City, A Dream Unraveled
At its heart, City of Fiction by Yu Hua follows Lin Xiangfu, a man from the North, who journeys southward clutching his newborn daughter, seeking the child’s mother and the fabled town of Wencheng — a city that, disconcertingly, does not exist.
Instead, he finds Xizhen, a backwater village, where survival is a daily struggle and memories are stitched together from rumor and grief. Here, amidst vanished crafts, broken traditions, and tender betrayals, Lin rebuilds a life, only to see it gradually unspool.
Yu Hua constructs this deceptively simple story with layered textures — weaving vivid characters, unexpected twists, and visceral descriptions into a tapestry of hope, heartbreak, and survival.
Plot Analysis: A Story About Stories
From the very first pages, Yu Hua plunges readers into a landscape battered by tornadoes and snowstorms — natural disasters that mirror the internal devastations of his characters.
The Search for Wencheng: Lin Xiangfu’s futile search for Wencheng, a city that exists only in stories, becomes a powerful metaphor for the human longing for home, meaning, and stability in a shifting world.
The Illusion of Belonging: After being taken in by villagers in Xizhen, Lin builds a new life, complete with a woodworking business, only to be undone by love and betrayal when Xiaomei — the woman he marries — disappears, taking half his fortune with her.
Cycles of Loss and Renewal: Yu Hua’s plot doesn’t move linearly; rather, it spirals, much like memory itself. Love blooms, only to be hollowed by absence. Wealth accumulates, only to be stolen. Yet life, stubborn and strange, continues.
Notable Plot Highlights:
The symbolic significance of Xiaomei’s “phoenix and peony” scarf.
The intertwining of personal tragedy with broader societal collapse.
The city of fiction itself — a haunting emblem of promises unfulfilled.
Character Study: Broken People, Whole Truths
Yu Hua’s characters aren’t heroic — they are painfully, beautifully human.
Lin Xiangfu:
A portrait of endurance and naiveté. Lin’s stoicism hides an ocean of vulnerability. His woodworking skills, a metaphor for his attempt to “shape” his destiny, become futile against the unpredictable currents of life.
Xiaomei:
Mysterious and enigmatic, Xiaomei personifies both salvation and ruin. Her betrayal — stealing Lin’s gold — is devastating, yet Yu Hua never frames her as simply villainous. She is a survivor of her own circumstances.
Supporting Characters:
The Tian brothers, Chen Yongliang, and the villagers enrich the story world, offering glimpses into the collective spirit — resilient, communal, yet marred by poverty and suspicion.
Yu Hua’s brilliance lies in:
Capturing both the dignity and pettiness of rural life.
Showing how personal destinies are inseparably tied to historical forces.
Writing Style: An Elegy in Prose
Yu Hua’s writing, superbly rendered in Todd Foley’s translation, is at once lyrical and austere. City of Fiction by Yu Hua carries a tone of quiet sorrow, where beauty exists in fleeting gestures — a knock on a door, a bundle of clogs, the clatter of a loom.
Stylistic Highlights:
Sparse yet vivid imagery: Scenes are rendered with photographic clarity but emotional ambiguity.
Symbolism over exposition: Cities, scarves, hailstorms — all carry layered meanings.
Oral storytelling echoes: The novel feels like an old story passed from one mouth to another, shaped by memory’s whims.
If you’ve read Yu Hua’s To Live, you will recognize the same unflinching tenderness here — an ability to wring the maximum emotional impact from the simplest sentences.
Core Themes in City of Fiction
1. Displacement and Identity
The quest for Wencheng becomes a meditation on how people construct and cling to imagined homes when reality offers no refuge.
2. Betrayal and Resilience
Xiaomei’s betrayal isn’t framed as pure malice. Instead, it reflects how survival in a collapsing world often demands moral compromises.
3. The Fragility of Memory
Yu Hua explores how storytelling — often the only record of lives left unmarked by history — distorts, preserves, and betrays.
4. Change as an Unstoppable Force
As old crafts die and new, harsher realities emerge, City of Fiction quietly asserts: change is the only constant, and resistance is often futile but necessary.
Strengths of the Book
Lush world-building despite minimalist prose.
Profound emotional resonance without sentimentality.
Deep cultural specificity that transcends cultural boundaries.
Nuanced portrayal of poverty, survival, and betrayal.
Minor Critiques: Where City of Fiction Stumbles
Pacing Issues: At times, the narrative meanders — especially in the second half — reflecting life’s slow erosion but potentially frustrating readers seeking a tighter plot.
Emotional Distance: Yu Hua deliberately maintains a distance between reader and character emotions, which enhances the theme of alienation but might leave some readers yearning for greater intimacy.
Character Ambiguity: Some readers might find Xiaomei’s motivations underexplored, although this ambiguity could also be viewed as part of the novel’s commentary on unknowability.
Who Should Read City of Fiction?
Fans of literary fiction that prizes atmosphere over plot.
Readers interested in Chinese literature and historical fiction.
Admirers of To Live by Yu Hua, The Boat to Redemption by Su Tong, or The Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan.
Anyone drawn to stories about survival, memory, and quiet heroism.
Final Verdict
City of Fiction by Yu Hua is an achingly beautiful, quietly devastating novel about the fictions we build to survive — and how life’s cruel realities often tear them apart. With Todd Foley’s skillful translation, this novel stands as a poignant testament to Yu Hua’s mastery over narrative form and emotional depth.
It’s not a book that shouts; it hums — a melancholy tune that lingers long after you’ve turned the final page.
Highly recommended for readers willing to immerse themselves in a slow-burning, emotionally layered literary experience.
Similar Books You Might Enjoy
To Live by Yu Hua
The Boat to Redemption by Su Tong
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant by Yu Hua
Frog by Mo Yan
The Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan
Final Thoughts
In City of Fiction, Yu Hua invites us to lose — and find — ourselves in a world where cities disappear, identities dissolve, but storytelling remains. It’s a novel that demands patience but rewards the reader with rich emotional dividends.
If you’re looking for a thought-provoking and quietly stunning addition to your literary fiction shelf, City of Fiction is a journey well worth taking.