This is the writer's voice, new fiction from the New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.

On this episode of the writer's voice, we'll hear why... Retriesman, Fiction Editor at the New Yorker.

On this episode of the writer's voice,

we'll hear Waikie Wang read her story The Trip

from the November 18th 2019 issue of the magazine.

Wang's first novel, Chemistry,

which won the Penn Hemingway Award, was published in 2017, and

she was named one of the National Book Foundation's 535 the same year.

Now here's Waikiekie Wang.

The Trip. In Beijing he boiled the water.

It was August, so the hottest month of the year. He put the water into a thermus

and carried the thermus on a sling. He called himself a cowboy because he thought he looked dumb.

Other people in the group carried a thermus too, though his wife did not.

Their tort guide was Felix, like Felix a cat, Felix said.

And he replied,

Okay.

He had been to Europe before.

The six-hour time change was fine.

But when 13 happened, something yellow crusted around his eyes.

The bus was air conditioned.

He dozed off, woke up, and by then his wife had finished his cowboy water. On the Great Wall he had to run since she was sprinting.

...