This novel by Zhang Yueran, a bestselling author in China from the “post-80s generation” – millennial to you and me – arrives in English on a wave of praise from Junot Díaz, Yan Lianke and Ian McEwan. Cocoon, translated by Jeremy Tiang, addresses the impact of the Cultural Revolution on China’s younger generations, and has the force of a story that needed to be told.
It takes the form of a present-day exchange between two old friends, not so much a conversation as alternating monologues. Li Jiaqi and Cheng Gong excavate their family memories, starting with their grandfathers. Jiaqi’s grandad, once “the most famous heart surgeon in China”, is dying, and she is there to look after him and deliver bedpan duties: up to a point: “In order to test his willpower, I once stayed away for more than 10 hours, yet he managed not to soil himself.”
