THE APRIL 3RD INCIDENT Stories

Narrator Fedor Chin's matter-of-fact approach to this collection of Yu Hua's short stories, written from 1987 to 1991, is a bit puzzling because the stories themselves feature dark symbolism, death, and the complex outcomes of life choices. The audiobook's title story refers to a date whose significance is unclear to one of the main characters but is encountered enough that he attempts to escape whatever fate that day may hold. Another man discovers he is expected to handle the affairs of a friend recently deceased. In another story, a mysterious wanderer tells of bombs, as yet undetonated, hidden in a town. The stories are deliberately mysterious, nonlinear, and fascinating, with Chin's warm tone adding to their dreamlike quality. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2019]