December 2017
Wake Me Up at 9 AM
by A Yi
The title comes from a Borges interview, in which Borges planned to write a short story entitled Wake Me Up At 9 AM but he didn’t write it at last. A Yi borrowed this title. In A Yi’s story, looped in the night of his birthday, Hong Yang asks his wife Jin Yan to wake him up at nine AM the next morning, but he doesn’t wake up any longer. The book recalls how Hong Yang, an illiteracy who has been simply considered as an outlaw, becomes well known in the town by taking advantage of his violence and necessary schemes, with the narrative of a hurried and perfunctory funeral. Love, belief, brotherhood and affection have nothing to do with him. The novel makes a scroll-type portrayal of the vanishing village and people living in the village by virtue of him.
