Reached for this one as part of Queer Your Year 2024, a book translated from a language that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, and it’s a fascinating piece of work. It was originally published on a queer Chinese website, and the author is still anonymous. No one knows if they’re a man, woman, nonbinary, queer or straight, but Beijing Comrades has become a cult novel depicting the underground queer scene of mainland China in the 80s/90s.

.

Be warned, it’s absolutely not a romance novel - not least because when the two main characters meet one of them is only 16 years old. Lan Yu and Handong embark on a tumultuous 7-year relationship, on and off again, filled with toxic behaviour, internalised homophobia, infidelity, mistrust, the works. A relationship that starts with one side so young and an exchange of money is not exactly written in the stars. Handong, the older man, is also insufferable - intentionally so. He struggles hugely with internalised homophobia, often returning to sleeping with woman and even seeing a psychiatrist to find out if he’s ‘actually gay’. His attitude towards women is awful as well, just all round not a good human being.

.

Scott E. Myers, the translator, wrote a super helpful introduction to this Feminist Press edition. This English translation is not actually a translation of the original Chinese e-novel, or of the later version, or of an even later version - it’s a translation of a mishmash of all these texts. I think is both amazing viewing the novel as a living, breathing text, but has also led to a few inconsistencies. Characters seemingly forget things they knew a few chapters ago, and Handong’s decisions/opinions chop and change - though this could be down to his grappling with accepting his sexuality.

.

Beyond queerness, the novel also attempts to tackle capitalism in the wake of China’s cultural revolution. However, that part felt a bit lacklustre. Handong is a ‘businessman’. I genuinely couldn’t tell you more than that, and I don’t think the author could either. It felt almost childish, ‘I’m a businessman, doing business, with my business associates and my businessman suit. Business’. 😂

.

Criticisms aside, I do think it’s a valuable piece of queer fiction looking at homosexuality in a closed-off society. I love that the author didn’t hold back with the sex scenes - I can only imagine the stir those would have caused being published even online in the 90s!

.

I feel like this quote sums up the book perfectly:

‘China was much more closed off in those days, and its people were much less aware than they are today. On the one hand, we lacked the knowledge and information we needed to understand what we were feeling. And at the same time each of us was unconsciously doing his best not to understand.’

.

An agonising back and forth, played out internally and externally, about accepting (or ultimately not) your sexuality when anything other than cishet was considered taboo. Sad, frustrating, fascinating in both content and production.