'One of the masters of modern Chinese literature' Jung Chang

A searing novel that traces the destruction of a community in communist China.

Told through the eyes of Xiao Qiang, a young boy, this deeply moving novel shares the tragic story of the blood-contamination scandal in China's Henan province.

Looking for a way to lift Ding Village from poverty, its directors and organisers open blood-plasma collection stations, hoping to sell the plasma to those in need. At first the scheme is a commercial success. Soon, however, whole communities are wiped out after contracting HIV. As Xiao narrates the fate of Ding Village, his family is torn apart by suspicion and retribution.

'The defining work of his career... A devastating critique of China's runaway development' Guardian

One of China's most successful fiction writers * New York Times *
One of China's greatest living authors and fiercest satirists * Guardian *
Yan Lianke denounces an alarming situation...his novel is a true revelation * Rolling Stone *
A sorrowful but captivating novel about the price of progress in modern China... Resonates with the impact of Greek tragedy or Shakespearean drama * Kirkus Reviews *

Yan Lianke was born in 1958 in Henan Province, China. He is the author of numerous novels and short-story collections, including Serve the People!, Dream of Ding Village, Lenin's Kisses, The Four Books, The Explosion Chronicles, The Day the Sun Died and Hard Like Water. He has been awarded the Hua Zhong World Chinese Literature Prize, the Lao She Literary Award, the Dream of the Red Chamber Award and the Franz Kafka Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the International Man Booker Prize, the Principe de Asturias Prize for Letters, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the FT/Oppenheimer Fund Emerging Voices Award and the prix Femina Étranger. The Day the Sun Died won the Dream of the Red Chamber Award for the World's Most Distinguished Novel in Chinese. He lives and writes in Beijing.