Michael X. Wang’s award-winning debut collection of short stories interrogates personal and political events set against the backdrop of China that are both real and perceived, imagined, and speculative. Wang plunges us into the fictional Chinese village of Xinchun and beyond to explore themes of tradition, family, modernity, and immigration in a country grappling with its modern identity. Steeped in a long history of violence and suffering, Further News of Defeat is rich with characters who have known struggle and defeat and who find themselves locked in pivotal moments of Chinese history—such as World War II and the Tiananmen Square massacre—as they face losses of the highest order and still find cause for revival.