"In striking, speculative uses of comparison, Li advances a decolonial reading of contemporary literary, artistic and cinematic works from China by returning to a traditional archive of postcolonial works, drawn from Ghana, South-Asia and Somalia. Figures of kinship - with dissidence, labour or caste - from twentieth-century canons of the decolonizing nation emerge, through refractory readings, as the unmourned possibilities of lost or unviable affiliations in the aftermath of the One-Child Policy. The result is a searching study of contemporary artistic articulations of inter-generational "kinlessness" in China." (Tania Roy, National University of Singapore, Singapore) "This meticulously researched and rhetorically compelling study advocates for cross-cultural identification via imagined, and actively constructed, kinships. In doing so, The Melancholy of Kinship makes a striking intervention in the intersecting fields of postcolonial, Chinese, memory, trauma, and kinship studies. Grounded in Judith Butler's concept of "melancholy", the work explores how a wide-ranging set of fictional and filmic texts affectively draw readers into processes of mourning lost kin, lost possible kin and, by extension, lost pasts and lost possible presents and futures. Far from being mired in the melancholic, the book takes up the process of mourning--at once personal and analytic--to press forward the promise of South-South alliances. As Li traces the utopic pursuit of kinship and its (re)construction in unlikely places and even among seemingly diametrically opposed characters, the eloquent investigation shows how establishing non-hierarchical alliances through intimacy can lead to "internationalist solidarity".

" (Esther de Bruijn, King's College London, United Kingdom) "This extraordinary book brings Chinese texts into dialogue with postcolonial novels to argue that the lateral bonds of sibling kinship are foundational to the decolonial project of international solidarity. Yawen Li explores imagined sibling loss associated with the One Child policy in China through comparing writing by Xu Zechen and documentary films by Amanda Liptz and Wang Qiong with novels by Nuruddin Farah (Somalia), Yaa Gyasi (Ghana, US), and Arundhati Roy (India). The result is an intellectually imaginative, conceptually daring reimagining of literary conversations across the Global South, paying attention to both existing and foreclosed forms of kinship. The writing is nuanced and lucid, interweaving astute political and cultural commentary with beautiful close readings. Li is a compelling new voice in Comparative and World Literature and this book will change the way scholars conceptualise comparative approaches to Chinese culture. I look forward to setting the The Melancholy of Kingship in Post-Reform China and Postcolonial Literature on my courses here at King's." (Zoe Norridge, King's College London, UK).