A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing

Longlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction Qianze has not seen her father in eleven years, since he walked out of her life the night of her fourteenth birthday and disappeared without a trace. But then she gets a call-there is a man on the porch of her childhood home, and he’s asking for her. This man isn’t the Ba Qianze remembers: he is much older, more fragile, and worst of all, haunted by a half-forgotten prophecy.

While Qianze wrestles with what she owes this near-stranger, Ba begins telling stories of his past. From his bloody days as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution to his mother’s youth under Japanese occupation, he circles around the prophecy he came to deliver. Qianze has always longed to know more about her family history, but as Ba reveals a past far darker than she could have imagined, she finds herself plagued by strange visions-fox spirits trail her on her evening commute, a terrifying jackalope stalks her nightmares, and the looming prophecy slinks ever closer.

Spanning decades and continents, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is a dark, magical realist family saga that moves through the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Cultural Revolution, and the present day to explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism and inescapability of fate in stunningly rendered folklore.