‘The Crossing of the Boars’ by Zhang Guixing (Review)

A fair amount of the Asian literature in translation I’ve sampled in recent years has come courtesy of Columbia University Press, and today’s selection is yet another Asian book that particular publisher offered me a while back. However, my latest choice takes me a little out of my East-Asian comfort zone as we head further south, and away from big city fare, too. Make sure you’ve packed light and brought along some medical supplies as we’ll be doing a fair amount of trekking today. Oh, and watch out for the wildlife – who knows what you might find just past the next upas tree… ***** Zhang Guixing has spent most of his adult life in Taiwan, but he was born and raised in the Malaysian province of Sarawak, which is where his fiction usually takes place. The latest of his works to arrive in English-language translation, The Crossing of the Boars (translated by Christopher Rea and Julie M. Wang, review copy courtesy of the publisher), is no exception, taking the reader on a vicarious…