Su Tong

Author Information
Su Tong's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    22 Books
  • First Book:
    July 1993
  • Latest Book:
    May 2020
  • Author Rating:
  • Share:

Book List in Order: 22 titles

  • Raise the Red Lantern

    The brutal realities of the dark places Su Tong depicts in this collection of novellas set in 1930s provincial China--worlds of prostitution, poverty, and drug addiction--belie his prose of stunning and simple beauty. The title novella, "Raise the R...

  • Rice

    Set in famine-stricken 1930s China, Rice chronicles the complete debasement of a city family after it takes in a young man named Five Dragons, a starving wanderer from the provinces whose desire for power and sex is insatiable. In this mesmerizing no...

  • Rice

    Set in famine-stricken 1930s China, Rice chronicles the complete debasement of a city family after it takes in a young man named Five Dragons, a starving wanderer from the provinces whose desire for power and sex is insatiable. In this mesmerizing...

  • My Life as Emperor

    From the celebrated author of Raise the Red Lantern comes a spellbinding novel about life in the imperial court of a child emperor

    In this chilling yet enormously entertaining tale by acclaimed Chinese writer Su Tong, a pampered and nave 14-year-ol...

  • Binu and the Great Wall of China

    In Peach Village, crying is forbidden. But as a child, Binu never learnt to hide her tears. Shunned by the villagers, she faced a bleak future, until she met Qiliang, an orphan who offered her his hand in marriage. Then one day Qiliang disappears. Bi...

  • Binu and the Great Wall

    “A wonderful read -- with all of a fairy tale’s leaps and turns and queer, vivid images” by the author of the international bestseller Raise the Red Lantern (The Observer).   In Peach village, crying was forbidden. But as a child, Bin...

  • Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories

    Set during the fall-out of the Cultural Revolution, these bizarre and delicate stories capture the collision of the old China of vanished dynasties, with communism and today's tiger economy. The mad woman on the bridge wears a historical gown whic...

  • The Boat to Redemption

    In the peaceable, river-side village of Milltown, Secretary Ku has fallen into disgrace. It has been officially proven that he is not the son of a revolutionary martyr, but the issue of a river pirate and a prostitute. Mocked by his neighbors, Ku lea...

  • Tattoo: Three Novellas

    From the author of Wives and Concubines (titled Raise the Red Lantern in the acclaimed 1991 Oscar-nominated film by Zhang Yimou), Rice and many other major works of contemporary Chinese fiction comes a new collection of novellas that ranges from m...



  • Atmospheric Pressure

    The train was late, and the wind was blowing Meng's coat open in the snow. With no sign of his cousin, he needed somewhere to stay the night. An old man enticed him to a second-rate hostel, and despite his annoyance, Meng couldn't shake the feeling t...

  • Dance of Heartbreak/The Diary for August

    In 'Dance of Heartbreak', something happened to a young boy in Grade 4, at Red Flag Elementary School; but even today the whole affair remains fresh in his mind. He'd never met another girl like her; she was a little child of glass, beautiful in her ...

  • The Giant Baby

    It was rare for the people from Wangbao to come down from their mountain village, but one spring, they arrive in town with sensational news - a virgin birth. What's more, there is something very odd about the baby - he is as big as a child of three, ...

  • Goddess Peak/The Q of Hearts

    In 'Goddess Peak', Miaoyue and Li Yong were almost the last two passengers aboard the steamboat to Goddess Peak - them and Li Yong's friend Mr Cui. Miaoyue found Mr Cui taller and better built than she'd imagined, and also a little younger and more h...

  • Home in May

    Yongshan is taking her son back to Licheng to visit relatives, and to see the town where she grew up. But when they get there, all she could find were desolate houses. Even the people on the street seemed not to recognise her. But then, in the rubble...

  • How the Ceremony Ends/The Water Demon

    In 'How the Ceremony Ends', it was last winter that the folklorist paid his visit to the village of Eight Pines. He wanted to collect folk tales and customs, to re-enact the ceremonies of life and death that only old men still remember. But somehow h...

  • On Saturdays

    You don't expect some guy making small talk on a train to turn into a real friend, but that was just the kind of friend Papa Qi was. And afterwards, Saturday became Papa Qi's visiting day. Every Saturday. Part of the Storycuts series, this short s...

  • The Private Banquet

    Bao Qing was a classic example of what people in Maqiao meant when they spat out the word 'intellectual'. Coming home to his old town for the holidays was just as much trouble as not coming home, for this was a town where his old schoolmate Fatcat ha...

  • Thieves

    Tan Feng was my one and only friend in Sichuan. He was the same age as me: about eight or nine. Tan Feng's family lived next door to us, and their other kids were all girls, so you can imagine how they spoiled their only boy. They really adored him, ...

  • Weeping Willow

    Weeping Willow was a place that survived by serving long-distance drivers, with petrol, food and girls. The truck driver was badly shaken as he arrived there in the dark and rain, but more shaken when he left. Part of the Storycuts series, this sh...



  • Another Life for Women and Three Lamps

    These two quirky novellas about small towns and their unusual inhabitants are surprisingly dark and funny....

  • Petulia's Rouge Tin

    China, early 1950s: Two friends find themselves on their way to a re-education camp for those not adhering to the standards of the new order -- working girls, madams, misfits. Who would have anticipated that Petulia, stripped of her silk gowns, would...

  • Shadow of the Hunter

    Su Tong, Man Asian Literary Prize-winning novelist and much-beloved author of Raise the Red Lantern, returns with a novel of moral dilemma and depravity in newly-capitalist 1980s China‘Su is a master of implication... - The Guardian‘His s...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Su Tong has published 22 books.

Su Tong does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Shadow of the Hunter, was published in May 2020.

The first book by Su Tong, Raise the Red Lantern, was published in July 1993.

No. Su Tong does not write books in series.
Top Authors in Science Fiction
No ads, please...

$20 / year

FictionDB Premium Membership

Subscribe