Crater (collected Works of Ning Ken)
by Rather
About This Novel
"Contemporary Literary Assassin" Ning Ken's 40th anniversary commemorative edition, one of the 2018 "Ning Ken Collected Works" series. Ning Ken's works have been highly praised by Mo Yan, Yan Lianke, and Chi Li. His novel "The Crater" uses an extremely absurd writing style to write about the clean love behind the morbidity. When an era becomes sick, can love heal it? "Crater" has the structure of a popular novel, but also has pure literary exploration. It introduces narrative elements such as Western suspense novels, existential speculation, and Gothic atmosphere rendering, giving the whole novel a cold and unique temperament. "Crater" is based on the narrative of "a Jane's Manor that strives to improve the ecological environment destroyed by humans." The male protagonist is a tiptoe detective who is obsessed with mathematics and specializes in investigating sex-related cases such as infidelity and mistressing. He was invited to Jane's Manor to write a personal biography for the owner of the manor, Ms. Jane, a successful businessman dedicated to ecological reconstruction and known as China's "Rachel Carson." As the investigation deepens, the tiptoe detective discovers that there is a terrifying secret hidden in the secret room under the mountain of the manor... "Crater" uses absurd techniques to exaggerate the morbid psychology and behavior of contemporary people, touches on the selfish, indifferent, and violent side of human nature, and reveals the spiritual desolation of contemporary people under material weapons. It is a black humor literary work with a very personal style. Ning Ken, a Beijinger. Novelist and essayist, his main works include the novels "Heaven·Zang", "The Masked City", "Three Trios", "The Door of Silence" and "The Crater". Born in Beijing in 1959, his original name was Ning Minqing and his ancestral home was Ningzhuang, Hejian County, Hebei Province. Graduated from the Chinese Department of the Second Branch of Beijing Normal University in 1983. In 1982, he published his debut poem "Snow Dream" at "Grudge" in Shanghai. He lived in Tibet from 1984 to 1986 and wrote a series of prose works such as "Sky Lake", "Tibetan Song" and "The Silent Shore", making him one of the representatives of China's "new prose" movement. He is the author of essay collections "Speak, Tibet", "Beijing: City and Years", "My 20th Century" and "The Pipe of Thought". There are also short and medium story collections "Words and Objects" and "Vigram", and the non-fiction work "Notes on Zhongguancun". He is currently a member of the 9th National Committee of the Chinese Writers Association and the executive deputy editor-in-chief of "October" magazine. He has won the Lao She Literary Award for Novel twice, the first Shi Naian Literary Award, the 4th "People's Literature" Biennial Novel Award, the Beijing Literary Art Award, the overall champion of the 2nd "Contemporary" Literary Rally in 2001, the first Sun Li Prose Award Biennial Award, the first Hong Kong "Dream of Red Mansions Award" recommendation award, and the first American Newman Literary Award nomination. Selected as one of the top ten novels of Asia Weekly in 2014 and one of the best Chinese books in 2017, with works translated into English, French, Italian, and Czech.
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