BRAISED PORK

Beijing-based author An Yu, who obtained an

MFA in creative writing from NYU, centers her debut novel on Jia Jia, a young woman who finds her husband mysteriously dead in the bathtub one morning in their Beijing apartment, leaving behind a pencil sketch of a fish with a man's head. Trying to make sense of the sudden tragedy, Jia Jia, now released from a marriage based more on pragmatism than passion, begins a journey of self-discovery that takes her from Beijing to Tibet. The novel's magical realism evokes the work of Haruki Murakami.