The Explosion Chronicles
Yan Lianke, trans. Carlos Rojas
“An American CEO, who had previously spent six years in Vietnam, eventually decided to establish the world’s largest automobile factory along the border of the Balou Mountains, about sixty kilometers from the Explosion county seat. What ended up eventually influencing his decision was not only Kong Mingliang’s wining and dining, but also his amazingly fast construction process, which was a result of Mingliang’s having bribed the people of Explosion.”