COMP CLOSED: ‘Ghost Cities’ by Siang Lu

This week, we’re giving away three copies of Ghost Cities by Siang Lu, author of The Whitewash, and the co-creator of The Beige Index. Ghost Cities is a mesmerizing and inventive novel that explores a profound reflection on the complexities of modern existence. Here’s the blurb:

Ghost Cities – inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China – follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney’s Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn’t speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work.

How is his relocation to one such ghost city connected to a parallel odyssey in which an ancient Emperor creates a thousand doubles of Himself? Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess-playing automaton hides a deadly secret? Or a tale in which every book in the known Empire is destroyed – then re-created, page by page and book by book, all in the name of love and art?

Allegorical and imaginative, Ghost Cities will appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and Italo Calvino.

Entries close midday (Syd/Melb time) Monday 20 May 2024. Winners will be notified within a week of the competition closing.

THIS COMPETITION HAS NOW CLOSED. THANKS FOR YOUR ENTRIES! WINNERS WILL BE CONTACTED BY EMAIL AND ANNOUNCED IN OUR NEWSLETTER.