The Republic of Animals

Abstract

The Republic of Animals is a collection of eight short stories exploring dynamics of power and complicity against the ever-shifting backdrop of modern globalization. In these stories, which follow people who drift back and forth between the Midwest and China, long-held tensions between characters are brought to the surface, forcing them to question their own recollections, and how feelings of regional and personal inferiority taint the ways in which one moves throughout the world. Parents, children, siblings, friends, and rivals confront the relentless passage of time, as their own lives slip away from their grasping fingers. No one exists outside of history; whether it is the burning of the Old Summer Palace, the economic downturn of Japan in the 90s, or the rising tensions between the United States and China in modern times, history looms over these characters, and the ways in which they emerge from childhood.