Brilliant and illuminating, this astonishing debut novel by
the award-winning writer Yiyun Li is set in China in the
late 1970s, when Beijing was rocked by the Democratic Wall
Movement, an anti-Communist groundswell designed to move
China beyond the dark shadow of the Cultural Revolution
toward a more enlightened and open society. In this powerful
and beautiful story, we follow a group of people in a small
town during this dramatic and harrowing time, the era that
was a forebear of the Tiananmen Square uprising.
Morning dawns on the provincial city of Muddy River. A young
woman, Gu Shan, a bold spirit and a follower of Chairman
Mao, has renounced her faith in Communism. Now a political
prisoner, she is to be executed for her dissent. Her
distraught mother, determined to follow the custom of
burning her only child’s clothing to ease her journey into
the next world, is about to make another bold decision.
Shan’s father, Teacher Gu, who has already, in his heart and
mind, buried his rebellious daughter, begins to retreat into
memories. Neither of them imagines that their daughter’s
death will have profound and far-reaching effects, in Muddy
River and beyond.
In luminous prose, Yiyun Li weaves together the lives of
these and other unforgettable characters, including a
serious seven-year-old boy, Tong; a crippled girl named
Nini; the sinister idler Bashi; and Kai, a beautiful radio
news announcer who is married to a man from a powerful
family. Life in a world of oppression and pain is portrayed
through stories of resilience, sacrifice, perversion,
courage, and belief. We read of delicate moments and acts of
violence by mothers, sons, husbands, neighbors, wives,
lovers, and more, as Gu Shan’s execution spurs a brutal
government reaction.
Writing with profound emotion, and in the superb tradition
of fiction by such writers as Orhan Pamuk and J. M. Coetzee,
Yiyun Li gives us a stunning novel that is at once a picture
of life in a special part of the world during a historic
period, a universal portrait of human frailty and courage,
and a mesmerizing work of art.
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy