Overview

Yan Lianke—“China’s most feted and most banned author” (Financial Times)—is a master of imaginative satire, and his prize-winning works have been published around the world to the highest honors. Now, his two most acclaimed novellas are collected here in a single volume—masterfully crafted stories that explore the sacrifices made for family, the driving will to survive, and the longing to leave behind a personal legacy. Marrow is the haunting tale of a widow who goes to extremes to provide a normal life for her four disabled children. When she discovers that bones—especially those of kin—can cure their illnesses and prevent future generations from the same fate, she feeds them a medicinal soup made from the skeleton of her dead husband. But after running out of soup, she resorts to a measure that only a mother can take. In the luminous, moving title story, The Years, Months, Days—a bestselling, classic fable in China, and winner of the prestigious Lu Xun Literary Prize—an elderly man stays behind in his small village after a terrible drought forces everyone to leave. Unable to make the grueling march through the mountains, he becomes the lone inhabitant, along with a blind dog. As he fends off the natural world from overtaking his hometown, every day is a victory over death. With touches of the fantastical and with deep humanity, these two magnificent novellas—masterpieces of the short form—reflect the universality of mankind’s will to live, live well, and live with purpose.

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9780802126658

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Reviews

ACCLAIM FOR YAN LIANKE -One of China's eminent and most controversial novelists and satirists.- --Chicago Tribune WINNER OF THE KAFKA PRIZE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FINALIST (twice) SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES OPPENHEIMER EMERGING VOICES AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE PRIX FEMINA ETRANGER LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN ASIAN LITERARY PRIZE PRAISE FOR THE EXPLOSION CHRONICLES -Charting the arc from unprincipled Communism to lawless capitalism, Yan employs hyperbolic touches that facetiously evoke legend.- --New Yorker -[Yan's] fiction has lampooned some of the darkest moments in Chinese history . . . The formal inventiveness of The Explosion Chronicles is impressive and its fictional universe vividly drawn . . . I can think of few better novelists than Yan, with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth.- --New York Times Book Review -A rip-roaring Swiftian satire from a contemporary Chinese master . . .Yan Lianke, one of China's most forthright and versatile novelists, enlists extravagant comedy and far-fetched fable to propel his critique of a society where 'power and money have colluded to steal people's souls.'- --Economist -No contemporary satirist has had more experience with China's censors than Yan Lianke . . . This darkly absurd history trucks freely with the fantastic . . . but many of the more brazen events are taken straight from the news . . . Yan's burlesque of a nation driven insane by money is equally a satire of some of the excesses of the Chinese Revolution.- --Wall Street Journal -A satire of ambition.- --Sacramento News -An epic page-turner . . . a multi-layered marvel . . . combining unflinching observation, stinging satire . . . Yan's mesmerizing ability to pull readers into this raw, subversive, not completely fictional world will continue to build his international audiences. Mo Yan was the first Chinese national to be awarded the Nobel for Literature; Yan just might be next.- --Library Journal (starred review) -Yan returns with renewed vigor to the job of lampooning communist orthodoxy, capitalist ambition, and 'contemporary China's incomprehensible absurdity' . . . [The Explosion Chronicles] has the absurdist feel of an Ionesco or Durrenmatt piece, though without any of the heavy-handed obviousness. Indeed, his satire is careful and crafty . . . it can be read as a kind of Swiftian satire . . . Brilliant.- --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Information

Yan Lianke is the author of numerous story collections and novels, including The Explosion Chronicles, which was longlisted for the Man Booker International and PEN Translation Prize, The Four Books, Lenin's Kisses, Serve the People!, and Dream of Ding Village. Among many accolades, he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, he was twice a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize, and he has been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and the Prix Femina Étranger. He has received two of China's most prestigious literary honors, the Lu Xun Prize and the Lao She Award.

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