«Yu’s novel has a cool, poised elegance that only adds to its enigmatic allure»

Economist

«An elegant, dreamlike tale of a woman’s self-realisation in contemporary Beijing. Yu’s writing has an arresting, unadorned lyricism»

Daily Telegraph

«A seductive, sharply observed tale of love, loss and hope that moves from high-rise Beijing to rural Tibet and the mysterious, magical ‘world of water’»

Fanny Blake, Daily Mail

«A startlingly original imagination... Braised Pork is a sensitive portrait of alienated young womanhood as it is set free»

Guardian

«Rich and strange … Braised Pork is a debut that gets under your skin»

Anthony Cummins, Observer

«Braised Pork is mesmerising, incisive and utterly disarming. An Yu writes beautifully about loneliness, the experience of isolation — from others, from one’s own past — and the possibility of human connection, however fragile.»

Rosie Price

«So elegant and poised, so tuned to the great mysteries of love and loss. Like a breeze on a still day, An Yu’s is a voice I didn't know I needed until I felt it. Braised Pork is a major debut»

John Freeman

«Bold yet understated, Braised Pork is the debut of a supremely confident and gifted writer.»

Katie Kitamura

«What a singular, slippery, transfixing novel this is. An Yu achieves a hypnotizing emotional clarity as she takes her narrator ever further from a stifling life in Beijing into a watery realm unlike any I've read before.»

Idra Novey

«A dizzying read… An Yu writes with style and in a way that is hard to resist»

Lucy Knight, Sunday Times

«Richly associative, the book’s imagery insinuates itself into the reader’s consciousness long after it’s finished»

Jude Cook, Spectator

«This exquisite novel is many things: a detective story in which the real object of pursuit is how one makes meaning of a sometimes ineffable existence; a meditation on the talismanic power of art and the indefatigability of the human spirit; and a many-faceted, perfectly cut gem of psychological portraiture set in well-wrought sentences burnished to a gorgeous luster. The emotions in this book keep pace with you, shadowing you with a quiet intensity, until in the last stretch they overtake you completely.»

Matthew Thomas