OCI Modern Chinese Literature Online Book Club

Please join us for our friendly online book club on Friday 1^st May 2026, 1-2pm (8-9pm Beijing Time). You do not need to have attended previous book club sessions to attend, all are welcome. 

In this session, facilitated by Nicky Harman and Emily Jones from Paper Republic, we'll be discussing an extract from the memoir, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by author Hu Anyan and translated by Jack Hargreaves, who we are delighted will be joining the session.

You can read the translation of the story in English here. The original Chinese version of the story is available here. 

About the Facilitators 

Nicky Harman translates fiction from Chinese into English. Several of her translations have been recipients of an English PEN Translates award and she has won the 2020 Special Book Award of China. She is also trustee of Paper-Republic.org. 

Emily Jones is a founding trustee of Paper Republic, a charity which promotes Chinese literature in English translation. Her publications include novels such as Black Holes (性之罪) by He Jiahong (何家弘), short stories and poetry. 

We are delighted to be joined this session by the translator, Jack Hargreaves. Jack is a translator from Yorkshire. His literary work, recognised by English PEN and PEN/Heim, has appeared on adda, Arts of the Working Class, Asymptote Journal, Granta, LitHub, The Southern Review, Samovar, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. 

Published and forthcoming full-length works include Winter Pasture by Li Juan and Seeing by Chai Jing, both co[1]translated with Yan Yan (Astra House); Reimagining Nanyang by Chia Joo Ming (Ethos Books, 2025); I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan (Allen Lane/Astra House, 2025), and The Man Under Water by Xiaoyu Lu (Honford Star, 2026). Jack has taught translation at the universities of Leeds and Aberdeen, SOAS and Hong Kong Baptist University, and writes for the China Books Review.

The book club takes place online using MS teams and is held in English. You do not need to be able to speak Chinese to attend. A recording will also be made available on this page after the event. 

Please register here on Eventbrite to attend. 

Questions to consider before the session:

In two of the nineteen jobs that Hu Anyan worked before he became a full-time writer he was a delivery driver, navigating the sprawl of Beijing, the bureaucracy of hiring departments and snippy customers. Through it all, he retains his sense of humour and humanity, and forms his own philosophy of life and an answer to the question: what is it to work today?  

1. Hu Anyan was catapulted into some degree of fame when some of the essays that eventually went on to make up this book started to get a lot of attention online where they were originally published. Current estimates are that this, his first book, sold in the millions. Why do you think these stories, of his various jobs from throughout life, including as a delivery driver and a sorter in a logistics warehouse, have resonated with so many people in China?
2. Are the experiences he’s relating here unique to workers in China or is the job similar for delivery drivers in the UK?
3. There was a bidding war for this book among UK publishers, and the winning publisher paid a hefty fee for the rights. One of the losing publishers, in fact, has gone on to acquire a similar memoir by “migrant writer” and poet Xiao Hai – a book that wasn’t even previously published in China before, because publishers felt it was a risk given its accounts of working life. Why are UK publishers suddenly so drawn to these stories? Where they might be hesitant to publish Chinese fiction, by comparison.
4. “Migrant literature” and “wild writers” have become a big feature of the Chinese literary scene in recent years, organically so (as in, from the ground up). Why do you think this is the case? What makes them so popular in China?