Yan Lianke

Sžíravá satira pranýřující pokrytectví a šílenství kulturní revoluce, jedno z nejtemnějších období moderních čínských dějin. Děj novely čínského spisovatele Jen Lien-kchea se odehrává v provincii Che-nan v prostředí armády v období tzv. kulturní revoluce, kdy byl Mao Ce-tungův kult na vrcholu a pouhé znevažování jeho podobizny se trestalo smrtí. Černá parodie na politická a sexuální tabu Maova režimu, pro niž si Jen Lien-kche vypůjčil jeden z nejznámějších sloganů Maovy éry, byla v ČLR cenzurou zakázána jako "urážka Mao Ce-tunga a armády".

This book is a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. Deep within the Balou mountains lies a small rural town populated by disabled people. Blind, deaf and disfigured, the 197 citizens of the Village of Liven have until now enjoyed a peaceful, mutually supportive life out of sight and mind of the government. But when an unseasonal snowstorm wipes out that year's crops, a county official dreams up a scheme that will raise money for the district and boost his career. He convinces the villagers to set up a travelling freak-show, to include Blind Tonghua's Acute Listening Act and Deafman Ma's Firecrackers-on-the-Ear. With the money, he intends to buy Lenin's embalmed corpse from an ailing Russia and install it in a splendid mausoleum in the mountains to attract tourism to this sleepy district. However, as we all know, even the best intentions can go awry.

`One of the masters of modern Chinese literature' Jung Chang This gripping dystopia contrasts the reality of life in China today with the sunny optimism of the `Chinese dream'. One dusk in early June, in a town deep in the Balou mountains, fourteen-year-old Li Niannian notices that something strange is going on. As the residents would usually be settling down for the night, instead they start appearing in the streets and fields. There are people everywhere. Li Niannian watches, mystified. Until he realises the people are dreamwalking, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn't already gone down. And before too long, as more and more people succumb, in the black of night all hell breaks loose. Set over the course of one night, The Day the Sun Died pits chaos and darkness against the bright `Chinese dream' promoted by President Xi Jinping. We are thrown into the middle of an increasingly strange and troubling waking nightmare as Li Niannian and his father struggle to save the town, and persuade the beneficent sun to rise again. Praise for Yan Lianke's books: `Nothing short of a masterpiece' Guardian `A hyper-real tour de force, a blistering condemnation of political corruption and excess' Financial Times `Mordant satire from a brave fabulist' Daily Mail `Exuberant and imaginative' Sunday Times `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 breakneck adventure story following the erotic love affair of party cadres Aijun and Hongmei during China's Cultural Revolution On his return to his village in the Balou Mountains, soldier Gao Aijun sees a young woman wandering barefoot along the railway tracks in the warm late-afternoon sun. Her name is Hongmei. Aijun is instantly intoxicated, his wife - waiting patiently for him at home - quickly forgotten. Both Aijun and Hongmei hurl themselves into their town's revolutionary struggle. Spending their days and nights stamping out feudalism, writing pamphlets and organising rallies, they become inseparable: they are the engines of history. The couple dig a 'tunnel of love' - to further the revolution, of course, but also to connect their homes and provide a chamber for their secret rendezvous. While the unsuspecting villagers sleep, they sing political songs and compete in shouting-matches of Maoist slogans before making earth-shattering love. But when Hongmei's husband finds them together one evening, their dreams of a life together begin to fall apart. Hard Like Water is a novel of immense emotional force from one of China's greatest contemporary writers, a universal human drama about the nature of power and the dangers of hubris, as well as the freewheeling momentum of love and sexual desire.

A brilliantly comic satire about a love affair from the visionary, world-class storyteller. Set in 1967, at the peak of the Mao cult, this is the tale of a forbidden love affair between Liu Lian - the bored wife of a military commander - and a young soldier, Wu Dawang. When Liu Lian establishes a rule that Wu Dawang must attend to her needs whenever the household's wooden 'Serve the People!' sign is removed from its usual place, he vows to obey. What follows is both an enthralling love story and a deliciously comic satire on the political and sexual taboos of Mao's regime. 'Drips with the kind of satire that can only come from deep within the machinery of Chinese communism' Financial Times