China’s most controversial,most honored, most censored author
August 8, 2015 10:26 AM   Subscribe

China’s Most Censored Author Published His Riskiest Book Yet

Yan Lianke

Bookforum Talks with Yan Lianke
BOOKFORUM: You spent sixteen years writing official propaganda for the People’s Liberation Army before you published your first novel (1994’s Xia riluo, as yet untranslated). What caused that leap from propagandist to artist?

YAN LIANKE: In 1980 our Corps Commander spent a year at the National Defense University and then returned with a frown on his face when he saw that everyone had started keeping chickens and ducks outside the barracks during his absence. He said something audible only to the staff officer beside him and left. When the reveille sounded the next day, each officer woke up to find his chickens, ducks, and geese dead from poison, including four ducks of mine. Everyone knew this to be the work of the Commander.

We all gathered in silence for morning drills, and the senior officers watched us march as if we were parading through Tiananmen Square, checking our formations and our uniforms. Then the junior officers were sent to meet the Commander. We expected to be chewed out but instead got a series of compliments on how well coordinated the marching was, and this surprise made us forget about our poisoned poultry. We all clapped as loud as a thunderstorm—the energy and unity made it sound as if it were coming from the sky.

The fact that the Commander had poisoned our chickens and ducks disappeared as if it had never happened, and life went right back to normal: Whenever we saw the Commander and the other senior officers we bowed with respect. But the incident made me wonder. I saw how unstoppable authority could be, and I became frightened of what power can do. So I decided to throw away the possibility of becoming a senior officer myself and began seriously pursuing literature.
Champion of the poor Yan Lianke fears he went too far in toning down his latest book [The Dream of Ding Village]

On Yan Lianke’s Fiction: Q & A with Translator and Literary Scholar Carlos Rojas

Yan Lianke, New York Times: Finding Light in China’s Darkness
BEIJING — China’s efforts to promote socialism in the late 1950s and early 1960s resulted in what is euphemistically known as the three years of natural disasters, during which more than 30 million people starved to death. One evening when I was a young boy, not long after the catastrophe, I followed my mother as she went to dump garbage outside the wall that surrounded our village, a poor and isolated town in central China.

Holding my hand, my mother pointed to the white clay and yellow earth of the wall, and said, “Son, you must always remember, when people are starving to death they may eat this white clay and elm tree bark, but if they try to eat that yellow earth or the bark of any other kind of tree they will die even faster.”
Yan Lianke, The Nation:  A Traitor Who Writes
posted by the man of twists and turns (4 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
has anyone read him? is he any good? what other chinese writers are there?
posted by andrewcooke at 10:39 AM on August 8, 2015


I think there's a couple of Chinese authors to choose from.
posted by oceanjesse at 2:00 PM on August 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


lots of cool points to you, but not terribly helpful to someone honestly looking for recommendations....
posted by andrewcooke at 2:15 PM on August 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


The Three-Body Problem was translated into English last year from Chinese, and was pretty great. Sorry I made that unhelpful snarky comment.
posted by oceanjesse at 3:08 PM on August 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


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