The Uninvited by Geiling Yan

Chinese peasants, lured by the promise of work and wages, form the backbone of Beijing's underworld. Working as prostitutes, cheap labour and even film-set punch bags keeps these desperate figures festering below the poverty line in Geling Yan's The Uninvited. It's against this setting that Dan Dong - a redundant factory worker living in squalor in the cities outskirts - is presented. Determined to make a better life for himself Dan becomes a banquet bug, freeloading press junkets and collecting the 'money for his troubles' awarded to all attendees. Dan becomes the tool of seasoned hack, Happy Gao, following his encounter with one of China's foremost artists. To make a name for herself she is eager to exploit the trust he has gained from the old painter. What follows is a farce that sees Dan as the unlikely hero of the city's exploited peasants. On the surface this novel is a dry, witty tale of a man caught up in a world he doesn't fully understand. However, the story transforms into a wonderfully complex analysis of society made clear through the eyes of the naive peasant. Dan's inability to comprehend the bribery and censorship prevalent in the country's media is a thinly veiled criticism of the hypocrisy of contemporary China. Although Yan's use of the English language is clumsy and the narration skips around the pages, it's testament to her Chinese roots. Far from being a hindrance it strengthens the character of The Uninvited, protecting the reader from the hard reality of its gritty soul. [Graeme Park]