Book Club: I Deliver Parcels in Beijing

For decades, Hu Anyan floated between odd jobs on the outskirts of China’s megalopolises: stocking warehouses, waiting at hotels, selling bikes, delivering packages and more. Then in 2017, suffering from insomnia after graveyard shifts in a Foshan warehouse, he began to write seriously. I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, a profound collection of autobiographical essays on the nature of work, human endurance and the crush of modernity, is the result. The memoir follows Hu’s peripatetic life, chronicling the absurdities, tragedies and triumphs of a life on the edge. A self-taught “wild” writer, Hu’s prose is propulsive and readable. With nearly two million copies sold in China, Parcels, as CBR columnist Na Zhong put it, is about “how our minds and bodies are chipped away by numbers” in pursuit of another day’s freedom. Rendered into English by Jack Hargreaves (author of CBR’s translated fiction column), Parcels is the latest great work of “amateur literature” (素人文学) to come from China.

Join our bimonthly book club for evenings of spirited literary discussion and connection with likeminded readers. China Books Review editors host sessions in New York City (at Asia Society’s café) and Washington, D.C. (at JF Books). We meet five times a year (Jan, Mar, May, Sep, Nov) to discuss the latest literature from or on the Sinophone world, with a focus on translated Chinese fiction — featuring introductory context, freewheeling discussions and light refreshments, plus plenty of time for mingling.

Email info@chinabooksreview.com to sign-up for our next session! Please include a short bio and your city (NYC or DC, no remote). You’ll also be added to our invite list for future sessions (no pressure to attend each time; we can take you off the list anytime.)