When originally published in 1993, Ruined City (Fei Du) was promptly banned by China's State Publishing Administration, ostensibly for its explicit sexual content. Since then, award-winning author Jia Pingwa's vivid portrayal of contemporary China's social and economic transformation has become a classic, viewed by critics and scholars of Chinese literature as one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Howard Goldblatt's deft translation...