Vintage books Beijing Coma Ma Jian

Blending fact with fiction, China Dream is an unflinching satire of totalitarianism. After decades of loyal service, Ma Daode, a corrupt and lecherous party official, has been appointed director of the China Dream Bureau, charged with promoting President Xi Jinping’s China Dream of national rejuvenation. But just as he is about to present his plan for a microchip that will be implanted into the brain of every citizen to replace all painful recollections with a collective dream of national supremacy, his sanity begins to unravel. Plagued by flashbacks of the Cultural Revolution, his nightmare visions from the past threaten to destroy his dream of a glorious future • This darkly comic fable is a dystopian vision of repression and state-enforced amnesia set not in the future, but in China today

The hugely influential book that set Ma Jian on the road to exile from China • 'Outstanding' Irish Times • A Chinese writer whose marriage has fallen apart travels to Tibet. As he wanders through the countryside, he witnesses the sky burial of a Tibetan woman who died during childbirth, shares a tent with a nomad who is walking to a sacred mountain to seek forgiveness for sleeping with his daughter, meets a silversmith who has hung the wind-dried corpse of his lover to the walls of his cave, and hears the story of a young female incarnate lama who died during a Buddhist initiation rite. In the thin air of the high plateau, the divide between fact and fiction becomes confused and the man is drawn deep into an alien culture he knew nothing about, and which haunts his dreams

In a sleepy hamlet in north Sweden, the local police make a chilling discovery; nineteen people have been brutally slaughtered. It is a crime unprecedented in Sweden's history and the police are under incredible pressure to solve the killings • When Judge Birgitta Roslin reads about the massacre, she realises that she has a family connection to one of the couples involved and decides to investigate. When the police make a hasty arrest it is left to her to investigate the source of a nineteenth century diary and red silk ribbon found near the crime scene. What she will uncover leads her into an international web of corruption and a story of vengeance that stretches back over a hundred years • The Man from Beijing is a gripping political thriller and a compelling detective story from a writer at the height of his powers

The dreamlike story of a young woman in contemporary Beijing forging a different life for herself, from one of our brightest new literary stars • One morning in autumn, just after breakfast, Jia Jia finds her husband dead in the bathtub of their Beijing apartment • Next to him is a piece of folded paper, a sketch of a strange creature from his dream. He has left her no other sign. Young, alone, and with many unanswered questions, Jia Jia sets out on a journey. It takes her deep into her past where, for the very first time, she begins to have a sense of her future

A compelling and painfully emotional thriller from the author of international bestseller Star of the Sea • From the bestselling author of Star of the Sea and Shadowplay, a thrilling novel about a father who takes the law into his own hands • 'Gripping and moving...a taut, expertly crafted plot' Guardian • Dublin, June 1995: the hottest summer since records began. But Billy Sweeney, a middle-aged salesman with a failed marriage, a faltering career and a tumbledown house, has more than weather on his mind • His youngest daughter lies in a coma in hospital following a mysterious attack on the petrol station where she worked. Devastated by the unfolding consequences of that violent night and frustrated by the system, Billy finally decides to take the law into his own hands

A detective under arrest. A killer running free. A dark and gripping thriller set in the Stockholm Archipelago, from an international bestseller and Scandicrime star • Detective Inspector Sam Berger's life has been turned upside down. He is suspected of a murder and his partner, Secret Service agent, Molly Blom, is in a coma • Meanwhile, a terrorist attempt is threatening Stockholm and a wanted murderer is on the loose. Berger escapes to the Stockholm Archipelago while he waits for orders from the Swedish Security Service's chief executive • But is he the solution or is he part of the problem?

Meet the three women who helped shape the course of modern Chinese history; a gripping story of sisterhood and betrayal from the bestselling author of Wild Swans • They were the most famous sisters in China. As the country battled seismic transformations these three women left an indelible mark on history • Red Sister rose to be Mao's vice-chair • Little Sister became first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China • Big Sister made herself one of country's richest women • Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister takes us on a sweeping journey from exiles' quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meeting rooms in Moscow, and from the compounds of the Communist elite in Beijing to the corridors of power in democratic Taiwan. By turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China

Discover the extraordinary story of the woman who brought China into the modern age, from the bestselling author of Wild Swans • In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Empress Dowager Cixi – the most important woman in Chinese history – brought a medieval empire into the modern age. Under her, the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state and it was she who abolished gruesome punishments like ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and put an end to foot-binding. Jung Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot and also takes the reader into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace and the harem of Beijing’s Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs – with one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences

1988 saw the birth of the internet. 2008 gave us bitcoin. Today, cybercurrencies are changing the world we live in. What would a world without banks, credit cards or national currencies look like for all of us? • For centuries, the system that governs how money works has stayed the same. Now there's an alternative, and it puts us on the cusp of a revolution that could reshape our world. At the heart of this lie, cryptocurrencies, a technology with the transformative potential of the printing press or the internet. They bypass the elites and cut out the gatekeepers. Unlike traditional money, they don't have a nationality, they're digital and democratic. They are also lawless • From Silicon Valley to the streets of Beijing, this is a story about a revolution in the making, a tale of human invention, and a guide to the future

It's the 1970s and cracks are starting to appear in the alliance between China and its Communist cohort Albania. When an Albanian steps on the foot of a Chinese diplomat the tension cranks up – couriers between Tirana and Beijing carry annotated x-rays of the foot back and forth. The Chinese intend to punish their interfering little ally discreetly. But is the Sino-Albanian axis about to come adrift? This is Kadare’s surreal black comedy about the inner sanctums of political power and the mysterious causal chains that transform ordinary lives

In the Caribbean, at the beginning of the last century, a poor rice-growing family struggle to exist. Four siblings pass their days in the ricefield, as does Ma. But Pa is an angry man ready to vent. It is the August rainy season and above their heads the black sky crackles with lightning • On the day that Pa nearly drowns Ma in a tub of washing water, the children and their mother escape into the cane fields to wait out Pa's rage. But eight-year-old Rama, catches a chill in the rain and falls ill. What follows is a tale of the inheritance of loss. It contains a heart-stopping intensity that places it as one of the greatest Caribbean novels ever written

1986 год. Глава семьи Свартов обещает умирающей жене, что их служанка Саломея, «доставшаяся их семье вместе с фермой», получит в награду за долгую службу дом, в котором живет. После похорон этот разговор быстро забывается, врезавшись в память лишь случайному свидетелю — Амор, младшей дочери Свартов. Но что может сделать ребенок? • Проходят десятилетия, сменяются поколения, семья медленно разваливается, но выполнит ли хоть кто-нибудь данное когда-то Обещание? • «Обещание» Дэймона Гэлгута - это не просто роман о моральном падении одной семьи, но и аллегория целой страны, многие годы жившей обещанием лучшего будущего • Книга на английском языке • One family. One promise. One chance to tell a new story • 'A moving, brilliantly told family epic' Elizabeth Day • On a farm outside Pretoria, the Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral