A nanny for a wealthy family plots to kidnap the child in her care. Unfortunately, her plans go off the rails when the family patriarch gets arrested on corruption charges. It's a premise to a novel that could take place in Washington, D.C. or Manhattan, but in the tale Women, Seated by Zhang Yueran , it takes place in Beijing.

The novel is the first in a new effort from Riverhead Books, led by editor Han Zhang, to publish more translated Chinese language literature. Zhang is hoping to expose American readers to a broader idea of Chinese literary fiction. When people think of translated literature out of East Asia, she said, they think of the famed Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, or the South Korean writer Han Kang, who just won the Nobel Prize in literature.

But ask an average read

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