In early 2020, the book saw a resurgence in sales as the plot quickly took on a new significance: whispers of an airborne pathogen, Shen Fever, circulating in China Shen Fever’s slow, unstoppable creep across borders and around the globe anxious New Yorkers handing out N-95 masks in office buildings once-bustling Manhattan roadways growing eerily quiet and empty of pedestrians. Its reviewers hailed Ma’s incisive satirization of corporate life, marveling at her ability to capture, with wisdom and humor, a quintessential millennial paradox: one cannot experience true freedom while bound to the conditions of capitalism, nor can they experience true freedom without somehow acquiring capital. The zombie apocalypse novel came out to glowing reviews in 2018, nabbing the prestigious Kirkus Fiction Prize and a Whiting Award, along with seats on several best-of-the-year lists. With her debut novel, Severance, Ling Ma established herself as something of a literary prophet.
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