The Day the Sun Died

Rezensionen / Stimmen

A winner of the Kafka Prize and a frequently cited contender for the Nobel, Yan is one of those rare geniuses who finds in the peculiar absurdities of his own culture the absurdities that infect all cultures * Washington Post * Yan Lianke, one of the most important literary interpreters of contemporary China, combines shocking satire and sharp imagery to address the moral vacuum at the heart of the country's extraordinary transformation -- Catherine Taylor * 1843 * Yan Lianke's powerful dystopian novel, narrated by a teenage boy, is set during a single night in a remote Chinese village... The underlying political message, that China is sleepwalking to disaster under President Xi Ping, could hardly be plainer... But there is so much colour in the book, as the sleepwalkers act more and more oddly, that politics seems secondary. Poignant and unsettling -- Max Davidson * Mail on Sunday * Masterful...a brave and unforgettable novel, full of tragic poise and political resonance, masterfully shifting between genres and ways of storytelling, exploring the ways in which history and memory are resurrected, how dark, private desires seep or flood out -- Sean Hewitt * Irish Times * A remarkable novel - open, like most good novels, to a variety of interpretations. The events described are incredible; the atmosphere all too believable -- Allan Massie * Scotsman * This exuberant but sinister fable confirms its author as one of China's most audacious and enigmatic novelists * The Economist * Yan Lianke hopes to illuminate the darkness that underpins contemporary China, and in the process help readers wake up from what Yan, like Joyce before him, suggests is he nightmare of history -- Carlos Rojas * Paris Review * A poetic nightmare...the creepiest book I've read in years... Yan's understated wit runs through these pages like a snake through fallen leaves...a wake-up call about the path we're on -- Ron Charles * Washington Post *