The Stolen Bicycle

Longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize

Praise for The Man with the Compound Eyes:

‘A uniquely harmonious blend of fantasy and blunt realism.... Wu’s beautifully evocative language and multilayered ecological and cultural themes offer a richly satisfying reading experience.' -Booklist;

'Offering a heady dose of realism, surrealism, and magic realism, with several shots of allegory, award-winning Chinese author Wu offers a work for ‘literary fiction’ readers, but not in the snobbish sense. It's really for any curious, intelligent reader not tethered to the best sellers lists.' —Library Journal (starred review)

'A universal, yet unique, tale of love and loss...A heady mix of science fiction, fantasy, environmental fable and magical realism, the author had to create a genre entirely new for this singular, captivating book.... [A work of] lyrical, haunting beauty.' —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

'It is science fiction...in the way that the best Margaret Atwood books are science fiction... At the same time, it's [also] in the tradition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magic realism... I read it on the train, on my couch, standing on the street outside a beer garden with a couple of liters already in me and in my car while I drove... I couldn't put it down.' —Jason Sheehan, NPR

'Beautifully written and beautifully translated... [Wu] guides us to see the entirety of experience as bumping flotsam in an unending ocean of life colliding and making a mess of things or making something new... Lyric, simple, soft, the story crests and recedes and comes back again.' —The Bloomington Sun-Current

'A gift...perhaps his greatest achievement that this novel creates a sense of solidarity not only between his human characters, but also between [the] humans and the animals and plants he describes with such fidelity and with such inspiring belief in the reality of their wisdom and power.' —FullStop

'Imaginative and moving.'—Financial Times

'Rich, dense and dripping with life. The book sings in the key of fable, but with the timbre of reality.'—Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Fictional Universe

‘Reminiscent of Haruki Murakami, twisting the dreamlike into the curiously credible.’ Times Literary Supplement;

‘We haven’t read anything like this novel. Ever. [It is] beautiful, entertaining, frightening, preposterous, true.’ Ursula K. Le Guin;

‘A haunting and evocative tale, beautifully told…this work will be a classic.’ Hugh Howey, author of Wool;

'Astonishing... A wonderful novel which deserves a very wide audience.' —The Independent (London);

'[Wu’s] writing occupies the space between hard-edged realism and extravagantly detailed fantasy...Beyond the book's ecological and scientific attributes, you can see a deft novelist's hand at work.'—The Guardian