The Stubborn Porridge and Other Stories

Chinese writer Wang Meng, who currently teaches at Harvard, spent two decades in forced labor and internal exile, became Minister of Culture in 1986 and resigned in protest after the Tiananmen Square massacre. The 10 elegantly crafted stories in this first collection to appear in English swing from irreverent social satire to political fable to absurdist farce, often within the same story. In the title piece, a double-edged parable, a large, traditional Chinese family experiments with democratic decision-making in their quest for the ideal daily menu, which leads them to adopt an unhealthy Western-style diet with near-disastrous results. ""Fine Tuning"" profiles a couple whose obsession with their new color TV brings them to the brink of divorce until they realize they are completely out of touch with reality. In ""The Wind on the Plateau,"" a schoolteacher who wins a modest apartment after a six-year wait must face jealous colleagues and his wife's pent-up frustrations. Wang's willingness to take risks shines in these short, modernist, stream-of-consciousness exercises laced with wordplay, ironic humor, images from pop culture and surreal touches. (Apr.)