delicious hunger
BY hai fan / translated from chinese by jeremy tiang
Shortlisted, 2025 Baifang Schell Book Prize
Winner, 2024 English PEN Translates Award
From 1976 to 1989, Hai Fan was part of the guerrilla forces of the Malayan Communist Party. These short stories are inspired by his experiences during his thirteen years in the rainforest.
Struggling through an arduous trek, two comrades pine for each other but don't know how to declare their love; a woman who has annoyed all her comrades finally wins their approval when she finds a mythical mousedeer; improvising around the lack of ingredients, a perpetually hungry guerrilla makes delicious cakes from cassava and elephant fat. The rainforest may be a dangerous place where death awaits, but so do love, desire and hope.
Delicious Hunger is a book about the moments in and between warfare, when hunger is so palpable it can be tasted, and the natural world becomes an extension of the body. Deftly translated by Jeremy Tiang, Hai Fan's stories are about a group of people who chose to fight for a better world and, in the process, built their own.
PRAISE
'This haunting series of stories of ingenuity, solidarity, comradeship and futility is an impressive example of history as written by the defeated, but it's more than that too - an almost hallucinatory dispatch from another world.' — Owen Hatherley, a writer and the author of Landscapes of Communism and Trans-Europe Express
‘The revolutionaries’ daily lives come into sharp relief in Fan’s stories, which take on added depth through their exploration of themes of friendship, love, and purpose. Readers will find much to savor in these impassioned and unique tales.’ —Publisher Weekly
‘Inspired by the author’s own experiences during his 13 years as a guerrilla fighter near the Malaysia-Thai border, as part of the Communist insurgency of the 1970s and 80s, Delicious Hunger is a complex and powerful collection of short stories. As if we have walked into a dense Malayan jungle, we taste the rain after a scorching noon; we hear a gunshot from a mountain path; we discover an injured fighter on the hillside; and we rest on a bloodstained rock to regain our energy. Hai Fan shows the rainforest to be a dangerous warzone where death awaits, but also a place where desire and love keep the fighters sane and hopeful. Jeremy Tiang’s translation exquisitely renders the subtle beauty and power of Hai Fan’s voice, and helps to open a window on the history of the struggle of a group fighting for their vision of a better world.’ —Xiaolu Guo
CONTRIBUTOR’s DETAILS
Hai Fan is the pen name of Ang Tiam Huat, a Singaporean writer who entered the rainforest in 1976 as a soldier of the Malayan Communist Party and spent the next thirteen years carrying out guerrilla warfare near the Malaysia-Thai border. His publications include What the Rainforest Tells You, the essay collection The Tumultuous Hills and Jungles, the story collections Wild Pathways and Delicious Hunger, and the novel A Rear View of the Rainforest. He now lives in Singapore.
Jeremy Tiang has translated over thirty books from Chinese, including novels by Yan Ge, Yeng Pway Ngon, Lo Yi-Chin, and Zhang Yueran. He also writes and translates plays. His novel, State of Emergency, won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. He lives in Flushing, Queens.
MORE INFORMATION
Publication date: 12 September 2024 (UK) | 10 June 2025 (North America)
Format: B-format paperback (198mm x 129mm)
Extent: pp. 272
Rights held: WEL excl Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese, also excluding South East Asia
ISBNs: 978-1-917126-02-1 (paperback)/ 978-1-911284-99-4(ebook)
Price: UK £13.99 (paperback); £7.99 (ebook) | US $18.95 (paperback); $10.99 (ebook)
