The Four Books: A Novel
Mar 2015 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Ebook
354
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About this ebook
From the Franz Kafka Prize–winning author of Lenin's Kiss, a "stupendous and unforgettable" novel of Mao's China ( The Times, London).
In the ninety-ninth district of a re-education compound, freethinking artists and academics are detained to strengthen their loyalty to Communist ideologies. Here, the Musician and her lover, the Scholar, along with the Author and the Theologian, are subjected to grinding physical labor. They are also encouraged to inform on each other's dissident behavior—for the prize of a chance at freedom.
Their preadolescent supervisor, the Child, delights in reward systems and excessive punishments. But when agricultural and industrial production quotas are raised to an unattainable level, the ninety-ninth district dissolves into lawlessness. As inclement weather and famine set in, the people are abandoned by the regime and left alone to survive.
Set inside a labor camp during Mao's Great Leap Forward, Booklist calls The Four Books a "rich and complex novel," from "China's most heralded and censored modern writer" ( The South China Morning Post).
In the ninety-ninth district of a re-education compound, freethinking artists and academics are detained to strengthen their loyalty to Communist ideologies. Here, the Musician and her lover, the Scholar, along with the Author and the Theologian, are subjected to grinding physical labor. They are also encouraged to inform on each other's dissident behavior—for the prize of a chance at freedom.
Their preadolescent supervisor, the Child, delights in reward systems and excessive punishments. But when agricultural and industrial production quotas are raised to an unattainable level, the ninety-ninth district dissolves into lawlessness. As inclement weather and famine set in, the people are abandoned by the regime and left alone to survive.
Set inside a labor camp during Mao's Great Leap Forward, Booklist calls The Four Books a "rich and complex novel," from "China's most heralded and censored modern writer" ( The South China Morning Post).
From the Franz Kafka Prize–winning author of Lenin's Kiss, a "stupendous and unforgettable" novel of Mao's China ( The Times, London).
In the ninety-ninth district of a re-education compound, freethinking artists and academics are detained to strengthen their loyalty to Communist ideologies. He...
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About the author
Yan Lianke is the author of numerous short story collections and novels, including Serve the People!, Lenin's Kisses, and Dream of Ding Village, which was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and adapted into a film (Til Death Do Us Part). He is the winner of two of China's most prestigious literary awards, the Lu Xun prize and the Lao She award, and he was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize.
Yan Lianke is the author of numerous short story collections and novels, including Serve the People!, Lenin's Kisses, and Dream of Ding Village, which was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and adapted into a film (Til Death Do Us Part). He is t...
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