El repartidor de Pekín

The author of this book isn't a writer. Or rather, he wasn't until his story of chasing precarious jobs in China's megacities became a publishing phenomenon. Hu Anyan has held nineteen different jobs since graduating: delivery driver, security guard, shop assistant... Each time one of them became unbearable, he quit and moved to a different city, always carrying with him the works of his favorite authors. Chekhov, Carver, and David Foster Wallace were the windows through which he breathed fresh air as he tried to survive in a system that was never designed to sustain us. With his unadorned voice, keen observation, and subtle sense of humor, Hu illuminates the invisible lives behind the jobs that keep the world running, but he also shows how, thanks to literature, he found solace and even a form of freedom. This work questions the meaning of work while posing a more pressing question throughout the narrative: do any of us truly know how to live?