REVIEW: “Transparency” by Xiao Bai

Review of Xiao Bai, Katherine Tse (trans.), “Transparency”, in Jin Li and Dai Congrong, ed., The Book of Shanghai, (Comma Press, 2020): 123-129 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Xiaotong is a PI whose been hired by a woman named Malin to track her husband and send her updates on his life. What is the secret he has been hiding from her? Who is Xiaohua, Malin’s best friend or the woman her husband is seeing behind her back? None of the answers Xiaotong finds are what you’d expect, or what they seem in this quick little mystery story.

(Originally published in Shanghai Literature, 2019).