Ruined city a novel

"Jia Pingwa introduces readers to his novel's antihero Zhuang Zhidie, a famous contemporary writer and an infamous lothario, who struggles with his own exacting artistic and literary standards, his "celebrity", and his inevitable disappointment in his various sexual liaisons. A cautionary tale of what it means to live in rapidly-changing China and the trappings of nostalgia, an unrequited romanticism for China's pre-modern, rural past" --