I Deliver Parcels in Beijing

In the twenty years following Hu Anyan's high school graduation, he has held nineteen different jobs. He's been a convenience store clerk, a bicycle salesman, a security guard and a delivery driver, among other things. He's moved from city to city in China, moving away every time the work gets too intense or the bosses too bossy, making a home in rented rooms and carrying almost nothing with him except his copies of Chekhov and Carver. I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is his account of his life as a low-wage worker in the anonymous mega-cities of modern China. From the psychology of the pecking order on a parcel-sorting factory floor to the perfect alcohol dose to get some daylight shut-eye before a punishing night shift, from the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the hiring departments to the ideal layout of a delivery route, Hu's sincere curiosity and deadpan humour highlight the human story behind the drudgery. Harnessing his love of literature, Hu begins to discover a new, freeing way of looking at and recording his world.

Hu Anyan was born in Guangzhou, China, in 1979. After graduating from secondary school he joined the workforce, moving between cities and odd jobs to make a living. In 2020, a blog post based on his experience as a delivery driver in Beijing went viral, leading to the publication of his first book, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing (Insight Media, 2023). It has since become a major national bestseller in China and will be translated into fifteen languages.