Yan Lianke

The origin story of a childhood spent in poverty during the Cultural Revolution, from Yan Lianke, named 'China's most controversial novelist' by the New Yorker. A powerful and intimate memoir about childhood, family and politics during the Cultural Revolution, from one of China's most important contemporary voices. With his quick wit and gift for metaphor, Yan Lianke brings the reader...

A luminous and deeply moving tale of hunger, loss and life by one of China's most renowned contemporary writers. The Years, Months, Days is a profound and moving fable about the deep love between an old man and his blind dog trying to survive in a terrible drought - there is no food, the villagers have left, but the old...

Banned in China - The Sexy, Satirical Sensation This sexually charged political satire by one of China's most distinguished authors was instantly banned in its native China, with propaganda ministers enraged by its depiction of the People's Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution. Set in 1967, at the peak of the Mao cult, Serve the People! tells the story of...

A surreal and gripping new book by one of China's most renowned contemporary writers. One dusk in early June, in a town deep in the Balou mountains, fourteen-year-old Li Niannian notices something strange about his town. Instead of settling down for the night, the residents start appearing in the streets and fields. There are people everywhere. Li Niannian watches, mystified....

A laugh-out-loud political and sexual satire about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, by the acclaimed author of Serve The People! Hard Like Water is a brilliant satire about love and revolution—a thrilling story about an erotic affair during China's Cultural Revolution. In revolutionary struggle, if you don't defeat your enemy, your enemy will defeat you... On his return to his hometown—and...

Heart Sutra is the most mysterious scripture in Chinese Buddhism. In Yan Lianke’s new novel, disciples of China’s five main religions—Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism and Islam—gather for a year at the Religious Training Centre of Beijing’s National Politics University. They live together, study together, exercise together in the blazing sun, and get caught up in financial and sexual shenanigans. Heart...

Dream of Ding Village is described as being sharp, fresh, sexy, funny, and highly recommended by the Sydney Morning Herald. The book drips with the kind of satire that can only come from deep within the machinery of Chinese communism, according to the Financial Times.

Lenin's Kisses is a brilliant novel about modern China. Blind, deaf, and disfigured, the 197 citizens of the Village of Liven enjoy a peaceful lifestyle, spared from the government's watchful eye. But when an unseasonal snowstorm wipes out the grain crops, a county official convinces the villagers to set up a travelling freak-show showcasing their disabilities. With the money, he...

The village of Explosion was founded more than a millennium ago by refugees fleeing a volcanic eruption. But in the post-Mao era, the name takes on a new significance as the community grows explosively. Three major families—linked by a complex web of loyalty, betrayal, desire, and ambition—are the driving force behind their hometown's transformation into an urban superpower. Brimming with...

Yan Lianke's most powerful novel yet. Reminiscent of A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Darkness at Noon, Yan's mythical tale portrays the grotesque persecution during the Great Leap Forward. In the ninety-ninth district of a labour camp, the Author, Musician, Scholar, Theologian and Technician undergo re-education, to restore their revolutionary zeal. In charge of this process is...