I first read this story in Comma Press’s amazing Book of Shanghai – part of their series of story anthologies from cities around the world. This series has been reliably informative and entertaining for me since I discovered it – one of those publishing ideas that would never happen without a huge amount of work and investment of time, and is so valuable. I am grateful to them for it.
In this story, a novelist lives in the building of the publishing house that puts out his books. The gentle, and quite loving erasure of the novelist’s life charts an ageing friendship, that just come to an end. I’m an absolute sucker for a creepy office building, and this one has a calm and friendly novelist shuffling around in it all night long.
Published in English in The Book of Shanghai, Comma Press, 2020
A Personal Anthology 