-
The time is that of the so-called Great Leap Forward, the years between 1958 and 1962, the setting a re-education camp along the banks of the Yellow River where it once flowed. The denizens of the camp are intellectuals labelled as “rightists” and are being politically “re-educated” through labour. Named only by their former profession, we meet the Scholar, the Musician, the Theologian, the Author, the Technician, all under the strict control of the camp commander, a strangely juvenile figure known as the Child. The Child runs the re-ed according to his own Ten Commandments, the last of which is Thou shalt not flee, and controls the prisoners through an elaborate system of penalties and rewards. The Author is ordered to write secret reports on his fellow inmates called Criminal Records, produced for the Child on the promise of early release. Secretly, the Author also takes notes for his own novel, The Old Course. Further, there are fragments of an anonymous manuscript in biblical style, Heaven’s Child, and another text Myth of Sisyphus, a philosophical reflection on punishment. Artistically woven together, these books reflect the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward and meditate on the meaning of integrity, truth, ethics, love, and memory.
Yan Lianke, born 1958 in Henan, is one of China’s most interesting, hotly debated and acclaimed authors of novels and short stories. Among his works are Serve the people, Dream of Ding Village and Lenin’s Kisses. His novels have been translated into a number of foreign languages, Yan not only won the Lao She Literally Prize and the Lu Xun Literary Prize twice, he is also the first Chinese writer to have won the prestigious Kafka Prize.
Note: This is a book discussion: the author will not be present.