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“The Four Books” by Yan Lianke [Why This Book Should Win]

This entry in the Why This Book Should Win series, is by Monica Carter, former BTBA judge and writer whose fiction has appeared in The Rattling Wall, Black Clock, Writers Tribe Review, and other publications. She is a freelance critic whose work has appeared in World Literature Today, Black Clock and Foreword Reviews. She is ...

Latest Review: "Lenin's Kisses" by Yan Lianke

The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Brendan Riley on Yan Lianke’s Lenin’s Kisses, translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas and published by Grove Press. This is Yan Lianke’s third book to come out in English translation, the first two being Serve the People! and Dream of Ding ...

Lenin's Kisses

A rich, beautifully written, consistently surprising satire, Yan Lianke’s Lenin’s Kisses boasts an elaborate, engrossing plot with disarming twists and compelling characters both challenged and challenging. It leads the reader on a strange pilgrimage—often melancholy but certainly rewarding—through a China by ...

Latest Review: Brothers by Yu Hua

If things go right, I think we’ll be running five reviews this week—which definitely makes up for the one we skipped last week. Up first is Yu Hua’s Brothers, a very long novel, very ambitious novel about two boys growing up in China during the period of the Cultural Revolution and the economic boom that ...

Brothers

As detailed in the profile of Yu Hua in the New York Times Magazine, he’s considered to be one of China’s most important contemporary writers. In fact, two of his novels — To Live and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant — were honored in China as two of the most influential books of the last decade. But ...