Review of A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang

Qianze’s father left on the night of her fourteenth birthday. She never heard from him again until one day, eleven years later, he barrels back into her life - “a bull in a Chinatown apartment” - with a half-forgotten prophecy he’s determined to tell her. He begins to unravel the story of his life from his bloody adolescence spent as a Red Guard all the way back to his mother’s torturous youth as a “comfort woman” under Japanese Occupation. All this history is creeping up on Qianze and prophecies, ghosts and nightmares all threaten to close in...

This gorgeous novel has given me a new hunger for Chinese history and reawakened my love for magical realism. It is dark and rich and oozing with atmospheric prose that transports you through time and place. From the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and through the Cultural Revolution to the present day, Yang explores the legacy of colonialism through three generations. There is a special piece of my heart devoted to family sagas, especially ones that teach me about cultures very different to my own and this does that so beautifully in a way that really moved me. This is a novel who’s characters will haunt you - read if you like to linger in the dark parts of history.

Reviewed by Abi

Published on 19/02/26 by Dead Ink

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