In the city of Yong'an, a fiction writer and amateur cryptozoologist is
commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These
creatures, with their greenish stomachs or gills or strange birthmarks,
live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness, some with ancient
forbears, others engineered as artificial breeds.
Guided - and often misguided - by her elusive university professor and
his scrappy sidekick-student Zhong Liang, our narrator finds herself on
a mission to track down each species. And as she blunders from one
implausible situation to the next, she comes one step closer to
revealing her own multifaceted beastliness...
Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of
China addresses existential questions of identity, being, love and
morality with whimsy and grace.