Lenin's Kisses - Softcover

Lianke, Yan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0701186968 ISBN 13: 9780701186968

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2013

Synopsis

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 money-making scheme that will boost his career and raise money for the district. He convinces the villagers to set up a travelling freak-show showcasing their disabilities, including 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 astray. Provocative and bitingly funny, "Lenin's Kisses" is a rollicking tragicomedy that stands as a cautionary tale of the all - consuming desire for power and wealth.

About this title

Review:

"Yan Lianke is one of China's most interesting writers and a master of imaginative satire" -- Isabel Hilton Guardian "Lenin's Kisses is a grand comic novel, wild in spirit and inventive in technique. It's a rhapsody that blends the imaginary with the real, raves about the absurd and the truthful, inspires both laughter and tears. Carlos Rojas's translation captures the vigor of the original, funny, poised, peculiar but always rational. The publication of this magnificent work in English should be an occasion for celebration" Ha Jin "A masterpiece on many levels, most pertinently literary. It is crafted in the most lyrical prose style, and in an intimate voice filled with poetic flourishes and narrative craftsmanship. This is a tale of modern China with all its wonders, marvels and absurdities and ironies roped together, making it a must-read. It's little wonder that the author has won both China's equivalences of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. And this book is the finest gem to reflect this man's gift." Da Chen, author of My Last Empress "Lenin's Kisses shines with both the lyrical flourishes of magical realism and the keenly sharpened knives of great satire. The reader joins the inhabitants of the village of Liven as they confront the great upheavals of 20th Century Chinese history armed with both whimsy and their obsessive determination to prevail. This tale is at once breathtaking and seriously funny. Anyone who wishes to understand the psychic world-view of the modern People's Republic of China must read this fine novel." Vincent Lam, author of The Headmaster's Wager "Sprawling, sometimes goofy, always seditious novel of modern life in the remotest corner of China ... Set Rabelais down in the mountains of, say, Xinjiang, mix in some Gunter Grass, Thomas Pynchon and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and you're in the approximate territory of Lianke's latest exercise in epatering the powers that be ... A satirical masterpiece" Kirkus Reviews

Book Description:

'One of China's greatest living authors and fiercest satirists' (Guardian)

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0701186968
• ISBN 13: 9780701186968
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512