I Deliver Parcels in Beijing

“This fascinating début memoir recounts its author’s career on the lower rungs of China’s consumer economy… His account reveals an author searching for his true self and finding it, amid unceasing toil, in the act of observation.”
—The New Yorker

“What makes Hu’s book especially striking to an American reader is the way it eludes comparisons to exposés of low-wage work such as Alec MacGillis’s Fulfillment or Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed. [ . . . ] Hu’s concern is instead to document, with painstaking precision, the texture of gig work—the small, unremarkable moments in which a day’s labor consumes the body and erodes the self. [ . . . ] Its patient, diaristic attention to the toll of labor in a society where discontent seldom finds public language can be read as a form of quiet resistance.”
—Rhoda Feng, The New Republic

“Powerful . . . The book is a grim indictment of a terrible system, though Anyan finds humour and dignity in his bleakest moments.”
—The Guardian, “Best Memoirs and Biographies of 2025”

“Hypnotic . . . I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is quietly revolutionary simply because it treats the minutiae of work itself as important. The bureaucratic nightmare of trying to get a company to onboard a new employee; the propensity of electronic delivery bikes to break down; the discomfort of delivering packages in the freezing cold, but having to wear fingerless gloves to type on a phone screen—that these can be the topic of a book is almost revelatory.”
—Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post

“I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is a focused, refreshing, on-the-ground account of nearly a decade of work, set against the slow simmering background of China’s economic rise . . . Hu’s minimal, hypnotic prose reveals the perverse beauty of tireless endurance in an increasingly precarious economy.”
—Xiaowei R. Wang, WIRED

“Hu Anyan’s I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, translated by Jack Hargreaves, offers an unvarnished dispatch from the front lines of the gig economy, written by a guy who’s held nearly every low-wage, low-reward job on the market (delivery driver, security guard, convenience store clerk, bicycle salesman). The Cinderella bit of it is that now he can add a new title: internationally best-selling author.”
—Leah Greenblatt, The New York Times Book Review

“I Deliver Parcels in Beijing offers a vital look at the challenges faced not just by China’s youth, but also by young people around the world contending with tight labor markets, job insecurity and social expectations. For anyone struggling to find meaning in a job they dislike, Hu’s raw experience and thoughtful deliberations provide valuable insights on how to chart a path forward.”
—Luz Ding, Bloomberg News

“[Hu Anyan is] a fascinating observer of China’s change.”
—Sarah Wu, The Economist

“One of China’s most remarkable new literary talents.”
—Edward White, Financial Times

“A striking first-person account of being working-class in China and surviving in the gig economy, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is a rare and urgent book for our times. The author’s experiences, shared by countless others all over the world, reveal the shadows beneath China’s economic miracle, and shatter the myth that technology and entrepreneurship can be the engines of eternal progress and social uplift for all. A keen observer of human nature and an artist at heart, Hu Anyan writes without pretense or self-pity. His chronicles capture the quotidian tedium of precarious living, and glimmer with grit, hope and humor. The rhythm and style of Hu’s plain prose are masterfully rendered into English through Jack Hargreaves’s translation. To read I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is not just to empathize with the struggles of one man, but to interrogate the structural causes and imagine alternatives to exploitation.”
—Yangyang Cheng, Baifang Schell Book Prize Jury

“Like all good writers, Hu Anyan lets the particular illuminate the universal . . . [I Deliver Parcels in Beijing] is an insightful, relatable, and often humorous account of working life in twenty-first-century China.”
—Benjamin Y. Fong, Jacobin

“I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is, among other things, a story about social class: about the unacknowledged and often exploited low-paid labor force that has powered the economic boom in China—and, given globalization, the world.”
—Rebecca Liu, The Guardian

“Described as humorous by its publisher, the book is periodically funny with its deadpan account of on-the-clock misery, but Hu is as much a critic as he is a comic, relaying insights earned through strained contemplation over years of struggling to make ends meet.”
—Megan Peck Shub, Electric Literature

“With wit and disarming candor, Hu Anyan’s I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, translated by Jack Hargreaves, offers an unflinching look at life inside China’s gig economy, as seen through the eyes of a worker who has done it all, from delivery driver to convenience store clerk to bicycle salesman.”
—Malka Margolies, PEN America

“Hu Anyan’s reflections touch on universal concerns. The language may be Chinese, but the exhaustion is global.”
—Catherine Hughes, New Statesman

“Witty and resonant . . . Anyan’s blunt, unvarnished voice, skillfully rendered by Hargreaves, infuses his musings with raw intimacy, and his quietly profound self-analysis lends depth to the proceedings. Readers who’ve struggled with work/life balance or the bewildering hustle of gig work will find plenty to chew on.”
—Publishers Weekly

“[A] memorable memoir.”
—Tobias Carroll, InsideHook

“Quippy and delivering some much needed humanity to the specter of delivery work.”
—Sam Franzini, Our Culture

“[I Deliver Parcels in Beijing‘s] star is [Hu Anyan’s] voice . . . thanks to this sensitive translation of the author’s distinctive deadpan soul . . . He’s also funny.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“This is not a judgment of laziness or unwillingness to work but a social commentary on human dignity and perseverance in an industry of capitalism and corporate greed.”
—Gerard Villegas, Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane, WA

“Fascinating insight into the gig economy in China. Delivering packages in a small area in a large city does not sound fun. Although, I would love to drive a trike.”
—Audrey Huang, Belmont Books in Belmont, MA

“With the great acuity of his personal perspective, Hu Anyan dissects every layer of the life of the worker, and how the system gradually alienates individuals by erasing their differences. He sharply analyzes his own status, slowly reclaiming his identity, and ultimately recovers his right to self-determination.”
—The Beijing Review of Books

“This is not an attempt to spy on the ‘low classes,’ nor is it the uplifting story of a delivery driver writing his way to fame . . . this is about a person constantly questioning what it is that makes him human.”
—People magazine (人物杂志)