<em>An Empty Room</em> is the first book by the celebrated Chinese writer Mu Xin toappear in English. A cycle of thirteen tenderly evocative stories written whileMu Xin was living in exile, this collection is reminiscent of the structural beautyof Hemingway's <em>In Our Time</em> and the imagistic power of Kawabata's palm-of-the-hand stories. From the ordinary (a bus accident) to the unusual (Buddhisthalos) to the wise (Goethe, Lao Zi), Mu Xin's wandering “I” interweaves plotswith philosophical grace and spiritual profundity. A small blue bowl becomes asymbol of vanishing childhood; a painter in a race against fading memory scribblesnotes in an underground prison during the Cultural Revolution; an abandonedtemple room holds a dark mystery. <em>An Empty Room</em> is a soul-stirringpage turner, a Sebaldian reverie of passing time, loss, and humanity regained.