Ge has lived in Britain and Ireland, and the collection captures the spirit of both her birthplace and her adopted homes in a variety of registers. The stories set here have a whiff of autofiction to them, but transcend their origins with style and wit ... It’s Ge’s stories set in China that are the most formally adventurous ... Struck by the quality of writing irrespective of its setting, we wonder what we have been missing in Ge’s earlier, untranslated fiction.
A short story collection can be a great vehicle for showcasing different styles and forms, and so it is with Yan Ge’s Elsewhere ... There is an impressive range to the nine stories in her collection ... A collection of depth and dimension. The spare, limpid prose style in many of the stories allows for moments of strong emotional impact.
Yan Ge’s English debut is preoccupied with language, its failures, and its relationship to human emotions and the raw reality...of life ... As a result of this cosmopolitanism, the stories in Elsewhere are jangly and eclectic, set in wildly different time periods and filled with dissonances ... These stories map out the distance between the head and the gut – the way language can fail to convey the deepest, most visceral facts of life ... At its best, Yan’s writing has an appealing quickness and wit (her drunken poets are especially irresistible). Several stories, however, feel too crammed with ideas; they drop hints and significant details that never quite cohere, and all this signifying gives the prose a stilted abruptness.
Chinese author Yan has written 13 books, but this is her English-language debut—and it proves clever and delicate, finely woven with a sharp wit. This subtle but brilliant collection will draw readers in and keep them enchanted until the very last word.
'Elsewhere' is a fitting description of this literary buffet of a short story collection ... A few of these stories touch on maternal mortality, a signal that the book’s themes of communication are deeply personal. A bold, confident book that delights in written language even as it probes it.
Yan explores human connections and disruptions in this ethereal collection ... Yan combines dry and subtle humor with her evocative lyrical style. These stories brim with intelligence.
