Translated by Howard Goldblatt
The newspaper says that Lin Shi killed her husband, the butcher, because she has a lover on the side, but that isn't true. Lin Shi's husband tortures her: the more she screams, the more he likes it.
Li Ang's highly charged collection of fiction begins with the internationally acclaimed novella The Butcher's Wife, which provoked shock and outrage in her native Taiwan when it first appeared in 1983. The short stories that follow are erotic, thought-provoking, and cautionary. A thrilling entrypoint into contemporary Chinese literature.
In this Series
The Butcher's Wife and Other Stories
Li Ang vividly evokes the landscape, routines, and rituals of the town, and in this seamless translation, her prose is often imaginatively spare and luminous.
The Butcher’s Wife offers not a single evasion or pretense about the reality and pervasiveness of sexual oppression. Li Ang has written this book with the dedication of a daughter and the responsibility of a woman.