Synopses & Reviews
The most revered, feared, and controversial Chinese novelist here offers a tour de force in which the real, the absurd, the comical, and the tragic are blended into a fascinating read. The hero — or antihero — of Mo Yan's new novel is Ximen Nao, a landowner known for his generosity and kindness and benevolence to his peasants, but who in Mao's Land Reform Movement of 1948 was not only stripped of his land and worldly possessions but cruelly executed, despite his protestations of innocence. The novel opens in Hell, where Lord Yama, king of the underworld, has Ximen Nao tortured endlessly, trying to make him admit his guilt, to no avail. Finally, in disgust, Lord Yama allows Ximen Nao to return to earth, to his own farm, where he is reborn not, alas, as a human but first as a donkey, then a horse, a pig, a monkey, and finally the big-headed boy Lan Qiansui. Through the unique perspectives of the various animals, Ximen Nao narrates fifty years of peasant history in China, ending on the eve of the new millennium. An absolutely riveting tale that reveals the author's love of the land, which is beset by so many ills, political, traditional, and modern.
Review
"A wildly visceral and creative novel....A vast, cruel, and complex story." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"“A wildly visceral and creative novel . . . A vast, cruel, and complex story.” " The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
- One of the Nobel Prize Winners in Literature
- Ideal for fans of Chinese Playground, We Are Party People, Death of Me, Skate with Me, A Farmer's Life for Me, and similar works
- Written by today's most revered, controversial, and feared Chinese novelist
Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out is a remarkable story. The absurd, real, comical, and tragic are combined into a fantastic read. The hero--or antihero--is Ximen Nao, a landowner known for his kindness to his peasants. His tale is a heart-wrenching and unique journey and completely riveting tale that shares the author's love of a homeland caught by ills political, traditional, and inevitable.
Synopsis
Today's most revered, feared, and controversial Chinese novelist offers a tour de force in which the real, the absurd, the comical, and the tragic are blended into a fascinating read. The hero — or antihero — of Mo Yan's new novel is Ximen Nao, a landowner known for his benevolence to his peasants. His story is a deliriously unique journey and absolutely riveting tale that reveals the author's love of a homeland beset by ills inevitable, political, and traditional.
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE 2012 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
Synopsis
Today’s most revered, feared, and controversial Chinese novelist offers a tour de force in which the real, the absurd, the comical, and the tragic are blended into a fascinating read. The hero—or antihero—of Mo Yan’s new novel is Ximen Nao, a landowner known for his benevolence to his peasants. His story is a deliriously unique journey and absolutely riveting tale that reveals the author’s love of a homeland beset by ills inevitable, political, and traditional.
About the Author
Mo Yan, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in 1955 in North Gaomi Township in Shandong Province, an impoverished rural area that is the setting for much of his fiction. Despite the audacity of his writing, he has won virtually every national literary prize, including China’s Annual Writer’s Prize, its most prestigious award. He is the author of The Garlic Ballads, The Republic of Wine; Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh; Big Breasts and Wide Hips, and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, all published by Arcade, as well as Red Sorghum and Pow!. Mo Yan and his family live in Beijing.Howard Goldblatt taught modern Chinese literature and culture for more than a quarter of a century. He is the foremost translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the West and a former Guggenheim Fellow.