West Link Books Acquires English Rights to Liu Liangcheng's "The Audible Annals of Abudan"

West Link Books, the publishing arm of West Link Consulting Ltd, is pleased to announce the acquisition of the English-language rights to The Audible Annals of Abudan (凿空), the acclaimed novel by Chinese writer Liu Liangcheng. The rights were acquired from Yilin Press.

Widely regarded as one of Liu Liangcheng's most ambitious works, The Audible Annals of Abudan unfolds in the fictional village of Abudan in Xinjiang. Blending realism, folklore, memory and imagination, the novel chronicles a community confronting profound transformation as large-scale industrial development reshapes both the landscape and the lives of those who inhabit it.

For generations, Abudan has existed according to its own rhythms. Donkeys, fields, wells, stories and the familiar sounds of village life form the fabric of everyday existence. Yet the arrival of oil exploration, modern infrastructure and the West-East Gas Pipeline project gradually alters that world. Roads replace tracks, machines replace traditional labour, and long-established ways of life begin to disappear.

The novel opens with Zhang Jin, a young villager who loses his hearing following an accident. His search for the sounds of a rapidly changing world introduces readers to the people, animals, stories and memories that make up the life of Abudan. From there, the narrative expands to encompass a remarkable cast of characters, including Zhang Wangcai, who spends decades excavating a tunnel beneath his home; Yüsup, whose discoveries reveal traces of a buried civilisation; and a host of villagers whose lives become entwined with the transformation of the land around them.

At once intimate and expansive, humorous and elegiac, The Audible Annals of Abudan reflects on memory, loss, belonging and the human cost of change. Through its distinctive narrative voice and richly imagined world, Liu Liangcheng captures a way of life confronting the forces of modernisation while preserving the sounds, stories and sensibilities of a disappearing world.

The English translation was undertaken by Bruce Humes and Jun Liu, introducing Liu Liangcheng's remarkable fictional world to English-language readers for the first time.

An American literary translator and critic, Bruce Humes is known for his translations of Chinese fiction, particularly works by non-Han writers and literature connected to the cultures of China's northwestern regions and the Silk Road. His translations include Wei Hui's Shanghai Baby and Chi Zijian's The Last Quarter of the Moon. He is joined by longtime collaborator Jun Liu, a New Zealand-based translator whose work has brought a range of contemporary Chinese literature into English. Together they previously translated Alat Asem's Confessions of a Jade Lord, earning praise for their sensitive rendering of language, culture and regional voice.

Further Publication details will be announced soon.

Media Contact

Vivian Ni
West Link Books
vivian.ni@westlink.uk
westlink.uk/west-link-books