Stick Out Your Tongue

Jun 17, 2025 12:13 PM

Author:Ma Jian,Flora Drew

A Chinese writer whose marriage has fallen apart travels to Tibet. As he wanders through the countryside, he witnesses the sky burial of a Tibetan woman who died during childbirth, shares a tent with a nomad who is walking to a sacred mountain to seek forgiveness for sleeping with his daughter, meets a silversmith who has hung the wind-dried corpse of his lover to the walls of his cave, and hears the story of a young female incarnate lama who died during a Buddhist initiation rite. In the thin air of the high plateau, the divide between fact and fiction becomes confused and the man is drawn deep into an alien culture he knew nothing about, and which haunts his dreams.

Banned in China in 1987, Stick Out Your Tongue, is the hugely influential book that set Ma Jian on the road to exile.

Reviews

Exquisite, earthy stories... Ma writes brilliantly

—— Independent

At the heart of Ma Jian's stories, there is both humanity and a piercing, if painful, literary truth

—— Guardian

Ma Jian...creates a stunning vision of a culture too easily and dangerously airbrushed into the ideals of others

—— Scotland on Sunday

All [these stories] are fascinating windows on the soul of a dying people

—— The Times

Deadpan yet shot through with subtle empathy and flashes of humour, surreal and unearthly yet steeped in a physicality so immediate that I flinched on at least one occasion. Beautiful...lean style...not a single wasted word...oustanding

—— Irish Times

Harsh, humane... Completely effective

—— Daily Telegraph

Russell is practised at whimsy and the surreal, at the magical and the unnerving

—— Paul Laity , Prospect

Russell’s storytelling, fusing realistic and fantastic elements, is imaginative and beautifully crafted

—— Tina Jackson , Metro

Wildly fun and full of suspense

—— Jess Holland , Observer

These stories will win her yet more fans, and offer typically colourful, off-the-wall entertainment

—— Stephanie Cross , The Lady

Karen Russell’s second collection feels completely fresh… The writing is spot-on throughout, with rich world-building and fleshed out characters

—— Ally Nicholl , The List

Russell's descriptions are well thought out, and she heightens all of the senses, often bringing taste, touch, sight and smell into her stories

—— Kirsty Hewitt , Nudge

Hilarious... Dazzling... Exhilarating

—— New York Times

A joy of a collection

—— Bookbag

What makes Russell's writing a cut above the rest is her fresh and inventive prose... Even [her] less effective narratives are hard to forget

—— Emma Hagestadt , Independent

Loneliness and mortality have never had such a fun twist

—— Big Issue

As subtle as the colour of Kitsune's silk

—— M John Harrison , Guardian

Russell is an amazing storyteller, and this book certainly whets the appetite for her next offering

—— Irish Times

‘[Barrett] cuts across all kinds of boundaries of class and education to produce immensely tender portraits of living characters.

—— Anne Enright , Irish Examiner

This is an exceptional debut, and one of the best collection of short stories that I have read in years.

—— Louise O’Neill, 5 stars , Irish Post

An exciting debut

—— Sunday Times

I don’t think I’ve ever read a better collection by somebody I had never heard of

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

A technically-assured collection that never disappoints

—— Country & Town House

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