Ari Larissa Heinrich examines transnational Chinese aesthetic production-from the earliest appearance of Frankenstein in China to the more recent phenomenon of "cadaver art"- to demonstrate how representations of the medically commodified body can illuminate the effects of biopolitical violence and postcolonialism in contemporary life.

An NYRB Classics Original
When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, "Last Words from Montmartre." Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, "Last Words" tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability,...

Ari Larissa Heinrich examines transnational Chinese aesthetic production-from the earliest appearance of Frankenstein in China to the more recent phenomenon of "cadaver art"- to demonstrate how representations of the medically commodified body can illuminate the effects of biopolitical violence and postcolonialism in contemporary life.