LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL 2017
With the Yi River on one side and the Balou Mountains on the other, the village of Explosion was founded a thousand years ago by refugees fleeing a volcanic eruption. But in the post-Mao era, the name takes on a new significance as the rural community grows explosively from a small village to a town to a city to a vast megalopolis.
Behind this rapid expansion are three rival clans linked together by a web of ambition, madness and greed. Together they transform their hometown into a Babylon of modern times -- an unrivalled urban superpower built on lies, sex and thievery.
'One of the masters of modern Chinese literature' Jung Chang
Rezensionen / Stimmen
Charting the transformation of a rural village into a 21st- century megalopolis, it is a boisterously inventive novel that conveys the everyday reality of modern China -- David Mills * Sunday Times Books of the Year * As much a parody of communist rule in China as a devastating critique of capitalist excess, power, greed and self-destruction, Yan's novel is nothing short of a masterpiece -- Claire Kohda Hazelton * Observer * Extraordinary... A provocatively illuminating and perceptive insight into contemporary China -- David Mills * The Sunday Times * A hyper-real tour de force, a blistering condemnation of political corruption and excess masquerading as absurdist saga -- Catherine Taylor * Financial Times * A rip-roaring Swiftian satire from a contemporary Chinese master... Yan Lianke, one of China's most forthright and versatile novelists, enlists extravagant comedy and far-fetched fable to propel his critique of a society where "power and money have colluded to steal people's souls" * The Economist * An epic tale of miracles, madness, greed and corruption set against the backdrop of runaway urbanization... Even the most majestic of sights in this novel are distractions designed to mask the pervasive moral rot that lies just beneath the surface -- Jeffrey Wasserstrom * Times Literary Supplement * In this comic fable of modern China... Yan has absurdist fun with the impact that policy shifts have on cremation, the military, elections, and the town's efforts to woo American investors... It's mordant satire from a brave fabulist -- Jeffrey Burke * Mail on Sunday * China is put under the microscope in this exuberant and imaginative novel about the sudden growth of a town * The Sunday Times * In an uproarious cavalcade of boom and (Yan hints) bust, the four Kong brothers and their resourceful womenfolk mastermind the ascent of their home town. Explosion becomes China in microcosm... The novel's farce, fantasy and fun stay just a step or two ahead of China's gravity-defying truth. Not surprisingly, Yan's work has been repeatedly banned in China -- Boyd Tonkin * Economist 1843 * Both madcap satire and engrossing dynastic epic, as three rival clans compete to turn the idyllic Chinese village of Explosion into a booming megacity * Good Housekeeping *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Maße
Höhe: 198 mm
Breite: 126 mm
Dicke: 40 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-78470-192-5 (9781784701925)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
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 Etranger. 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.
