Chinese writer An Yu's debut novel is making waves with its surreal grip on reality

'I don’t want to, or rather, I don’t entirely know how to draw a clear line between the real and the surreal. The bizarre and the insane keep happening in this world we live in,' says Beijing-based An Yu. Photo: Tara Lengyel

Reading Chinese author An Yu’s Braised Pork is like walking into a dream in that it is composed of fragments that are as mesmerising as they are fleeting.

The book opens with a startling death and the discovery of a mysterious drawing of a creature that is part fish, part man, discovered beside the man who died in the bathtub.