Waste Tide

About

Mimi is a waste girl — one of thousands of migrant workers picking through mountains of hazardous electronic detritus on a fictional island off the Chinese coast. When she's exposed to a mysterious substance in the waste, she begins to change, gaining abilities that make her both more powerful and more dangerous to the corporations and clans that control the island's toxic economy. Chen Qiufan writes climate fiction that is rooted in the reality of e-waste processing — an industry he researched firsthand — and uses it as the foundation for a thriller about class, technology, and the bodies that absorb the cost of the world's consumption. A novel about the people who live in our garbage — and what happens when the waste starts fighting back.