Yu Hua’s City of Fiction is a remarkable feat — a novel that reads like a living memory, shaped as much by yearning and heartbreak as by history and myth. Set in early 20th-century China — an empire in decay, a nation on the cusp of modernity — it follows a quiet northern man, Lin Xiangfu, who journeys south during a brutal snowstorm, carrying a newborn and chasing the ghost of a city that might not even exist.
In the hands of a lesser writer, this could have been a simple tale of survival. But in Yu Hua’s world, the real landscape isn’t the battered villages or the forgotten cities — it’s the shifting, unreliable terrain of human emotion: hope, grief, betrayal, and resilience.
Yu Hua, known for acclaimed works like To Live and China in Ten Words, once again proves himself a master of blending personal tragedy with broader social upheaval. In City of Fiction, however, Yu Hua experiments even further — leaning into a dreamlike, almost fable-like storytelling that feels both familiar and disorienting.
Plot Overview: The Story of Loss Disguised as a Story of Seeking
At its core, City of Fiction by Yu Hua is a deceptively simple story:
- Lin Xiangfu, a widowed woodworker from the north, arrives in a southern town seeking a woman who abandoned him, with a child in tow.
- He builds a new life, finding brief joy with Xiaomei, a mysterious young woman who brings warmth and domesticity back to his barren world.
- But the happiness is fleeting; betrayal, loss, and the harsh realities of survival soon erode the fragile world he tries to construct.
Unlike traditional historical fiction, Yu Hua is less interested in political events and more invested in how ordinary lives are swept away by forces they can neither understand nor control.
Through Lin’s quest, Yu Hua paints a ghost story without ghosts, a romance without lasting love, and a hero’s journey where the destination is absence.
Main Character Analysis: Lin Xiangfu and the Portrait of a Dispossessed Man
Lin Xiangfu is a quietly devastating character — one of Yu Hua’s finest creations.
- Resilient but passive: Lin adapts to crushing loneliness and betrayal, yet rarely asserts his own desires or confronts those who wrong him.
- Deeply human: His naivety and hope are painfully relatable. When he loves, he loves completely; when he trusts, he trusts blindly.
- Shaped by memory and obligation: Haunted by the deaths of his parents, Lin clings to the rituals and traditions they taught him, even when the world around him makes them irrelevant.
Yu Hua sketches Lin not as a traditional tragic hero, but as something more fragile and realistic: an everyman swallowed by forces larger than himself, surviving not because he triumphs, but because he endures.
“Even if you have all the money in the world,” his mother once told him, “it’s not as good as having a skill.”
This single line perfectly captures Lin’s — and the novel’s — emotional core.
Yu Hua’s Writing Style: Simplicity with Devastating Underpinnings
In City of Fiction, Yu Hua’s prose (beautifully translated by Todd Foley) is:
- Spare yet luminous: Sentences are short and straightforward, but they ripple with emotional weight.
- Dreamlike structure: Events often feel suspended in time, blending realism with mythic undertones.
- Deeply sensory: Smells, textures, and sounds (especially weaving, footsteps, and storms) saturate the text.
Despite the profound sadness threading the novel, Yu Hua’s tone remains remarkably restrained. He trusts the reader to feel the weight without being told, a signature trait shared with To Live and even the nonfiction essays of China in Ten Words.
Todd Foley’s translation deserves praise: it preserves Yu Hua’s delicate balance of sorrow and lyricism, allowing English-speaking readers to experience the novel’s quiet devastation without a single note feeling false.
Themes: Storytelling, Survival, and the Vanishing of Traditions
Yu Hua weaves multiple themes with astonishing subtlety:
1. The Fragility of Human Bonds
Lin’s relationship with Xiaomei is touching but ultimately hollow — a survival instinct mistaken for love. Trust becomes a currency as precious — and as fragile — as gold.
2. The Collapse of Traditions
Lin clings to rituals — saving gold, weaving, farming — but the world around him has moved on. His inherited customs are like fading echoes in a world of brutal modern realities.
3. Storytelling as Survival
The entire novel feels like a tapestry of half-remembered tales: some true, some invented, all essential. Storytelling is the only way Lin — and perhaps all of us — make sense of loss and chaos.
Yu Hua doesn’t just tell a story; he shows why we must keep telling stories, even when they betray us.
Strengths of City of Fiction
- Elegant simplicity: The writing carries profound emotional depth without ever feeling overwrought.
- Evocative atmosphere: Snowstorms, ruined villages, the sharp clang of wooden clogs — these details are almost cinematic in their vividness.
- Deep empathy: Even minor characters are drawn with sympathy and complexity, no matter how flawed they are.
Critiques and Limitations
While City of Fiction by Yu Hua is an extraordinary achievement, it’s not without minor faults:
- Occasional narrative distance: Some readers might find the emotional detachment frustrating, particularly compared to Yu Hua’s more visceral novels like To Live.
- Pacing issues: Midway through, the story risks feeling repetitive, especially during Lin’s slow realization of betrayal.
- Minimal plot progression: Those seeking high drama or conventional historical fiction beats might find the story too subdued or meandering.
However, these are deliberate stylistic choices — fitting for a novel about futility, change, and forgotten dreams.
How City of Fiction Compares to Other Works
- Compared to To Live: While To Live is a sweeping narrative of survival through China’s political turmoil, City of Fiction feels smaller, more introspective — almost a private myth whispered into the wind.
- Readers of Yiyun Li (Where Reasons End) or Mo Yan (Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out) will appreciate Yu Hua’s careful emotional excavation and his willingness to leave questions hauntingly unanswered.
Final Verdict: A Quiet Masterpiece of Endurance and Loss
City of Fiction by Yu Hua is not a novel that shouts. It mourns, it remembers, it dreams. It’s a book that invites readers to sit with it — to feel the slow ache of memory, the bitter taste of trust misplaced, the faint warmth of stories told on cold nights.
If you seek a literary journey that honors the heartbreak of ordinary lives, City of Fiction is a destination worth reaching — even if, like Lin Xiangfu’s quest, it leaves you wondering whether the city was ever there at all.
Who Should Read City of Fiction?
- Lovers of literary fiction and historical fiction that explore inner emotional landscapes
- Readers interested in early 20th-century Chinese life and culture
- Fans of Yu Hua’s previous works, or writers like Yiyun Li and Mo Yan
- Anyone who enjoys quiet, contemplative novels that favor memory and mood over action
Final Reflection
Yu Hua reminds us that cities are not always made of stone and timber; sometimes, they are built of longing, stories, and heartbreak. City of Fiction is a melancholy marvel — a novel that lingers long after its final page has turned.