"Looks Beautiful" Author: Wang Shuo Publisher: Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House Series: Wang Shuo's Selected Works Hardcover

The work features Fang Qiangqiang, who is between three and seven years old, and reproduces the spiritual growth of a generation from 1961 to 1966, and the collective unconsciousness of a generation. It is a serious introspection and deep aftertaste about him and his generation, and is Wang Shuo's first "root-seeking" work. As he said in the preface of this book: "I still have an original intention for literature, which is to restore life."

The novel examines society and the adult world from the dual perspectives of Fang Qiangqiang and "I". This is a child who grew up in a nursery, has a distant relationship with his parents, and is not very popular with the aunt and other children in the nursery. Later, when he entered school, he wanted to actively attract the attention of the teacher and wrote an application to join the team, but failed; when the teacher was sick, he helped the teacher to organize homework, but made the substitute teacher angry. As he grew older and the social environment changed, the school was closed and his father was sent to a cadre school. He became a freer child without anyone to supervise him (the compound at this time was basically a "fatherless" society), watching older children fighting and playing with children of the same age in the compound. Wang Shuo used a lot of words to describe the growth of such a socialized self, reproducing the collective unconsciousness of their generation.

Wang Shuo is a Beijing native. Born in 1958, he joined the Navy’s North Sea Fleet as a medical worker after graduating from high school in 1976. He returned to Beijing in 1980 after retiring from the army and joined the Beijing Pharmaceutical Company’s drug wholesale store as a salesperson. He began writing in 1978. He resigned in 1983 and became a freelance writer. He joined the Chinese Writers Association in 1988. He has published many novellas and novels, totaling more than 1.6 million words, and some of his works have been adapted into movies and TV series. His representative works include “Air Hostess”, “Floating Out of the Sea”, “Half Flame and Half Sea Water”, “The Troublemakers”, “Don’t Treat Me Like a Human Being”, “What We Play Is the Heartbeat”, “I’m Your Dad”, “Looks Beautiful”, “Talking to Our Daughter” and other novels, which are widely welcomed by readers.