The Bridegroom — Ha Jin

By turns comical and deeply moving, the stories in The Bridegroom--by the remarkable Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for his celebrated novel Waiting--present a portrait of contemporary China spiked with elements that surprise, disturb, and delight.

In the title story, the head of security at a sewing machine factory is shocked, first when the handsomest worker on the floor proposes marriage to his homely adopted daughter, and again when his new son-in-law is arrested for the "crime" of homosexuality. In "Alive," a man is sent by his employers to collect a debt in a faraway town; when an earthquake induces amnesia, he marries a stranger and begins a new life, only to remember later that he has left a family behind in his native Muji City. And in "After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town," the Chinese workers at an American-style fast-food franchise receive a hilarious crash course in marketing, deep-frying, and that frustrating capitalist dictum, "The customer is always right." In these and nine other unforgettable tales, Ha Jin has triumphed again.