Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke
Deep within the Balou mountains lies a small rural town populated by disabled people. Blind, deaf and disfigured, the 197 citizens of the Village of Liven have until now enjoyed a peaceful, mutually supportive life out of sight and mind of the government. But when an unseasonal snowstorm wipes out that year’s crops, a county official dreams up a scheme that will raise money for the district and boost his career. He convinces the villagers to set up a travelling freak-show, to include Blind Tonghua’s Acute Listening Act, Guess the Age of the Old Man, Deafman Ma’s Firecrackers-on-the-Ear and One-Eye’s Needle Threading. With the money, he intends to buy Lenin’s embalmed corpse from an ailing Russia and install it in a splendid mausoleum in the mountains to attract tourism to this sleepy district. However, as we all know, even the best intentions can go awry. Provocative and funny, Lenin’s Kisses melds fable, history and satire into a fantastical cautionary tale about contemporary China’s all-consuming desire for power and wealth.
Yan Lianke is one of China’s most interesting writers and a master of imaginative satire -- Isabel Hilton * Guardian *
The award-winning novelist Yan Lianke is one of China's most interesting writers and a master of imaginative satireHis work is animated by an affectionate loyalty to his peasant origins... and fierce anger over the political abuses of the regime... [this] innovative novel, with its wit, humanity and satire, sets a provocative example -- Isabel Hilton * Guardian *
Yan’s postmodern cartoon of the Communist dream caving to run-amok capitalism is fiendishly clever * New York Times Book Review *
Brilliantly acerbic plot... Yan lets the irony of his scenario... speak for itself; his deadpan presentation makes the satire bite all the harder -- Julia Lovell * Spectator *
A hugely ambitious political fable… A great ripping yarn, but also the kind of raw literary qualities that can only emanate from a non-European tradition -- Xiaolu Guo * Independent *
The award-winning novelist Yan Lianke is one of China's most interesting writers and a master of imaginative satireHis work is animated by an affectionate loyalty to his peasant origins... and fierce anger over the political abuses of the regime... [this] innovative novel, with its wit, humanity and satire, sets a provocative example -- Isabel Hilton * Guardian *
Yan’s postmodern cartoon of the Communist dream caving to run-amok capitalism is fiendishly clever * New York Times Book Review *
Brilliantly acerbic plot... Yan lets the irony of his scenario... speak for itself; his deadpan presentation makes the satire bite all the harder -- Julia Lovell * Spectator *
A hugely ambitious political fable… A great ripping yarn, but also the kind of raw literary qualities that can only emanate from a non-European tradition -- Xiaolu Guo * Independent *
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, The Four Books, The Explosion Chronicles and The Day the Sun Died. 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.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780701188078 |
| ISBN 10 | 0701188073 |
| Title | Lenin's Kisses |
| Author | Yan Lianke |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2013-02-07 |
| Number of pages | 512 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2013 (UK) |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |