Eventually a gust of wind will blow the leaves as well as the village away, towards nowhere. Neighbors will firstly crush like leaves, then turn yellow and finally fall from the trees in a rattle whisper. In its first pages the narrator tells us that Ding village will disappear from the face of the Earth. It is a very lyrical book, not slow paced but that relentlessly leads to a white winter, the color of mourning in China.
It is an overwhelming nightmare that possesses the beauty and rhythm of autumn. £7.99ĭream of Ding Village is the winner of the 2014 Franz Kafka’s Award. He has also published ten collections of novellas and short stories: among them, the critically acclaimed Days, Months, Years (年月日, Nian Yue Ri) and Song of the Plow (耙耧天歌, Palou Tiange).Additional info Author 266 pages - € 14,00 Title Dream of Ding village Translator Publisher Corsair, 2012 Info 352 pages, €. Some of his other novels are: The Joy of Living (or: The Living, 受活, Shou Huo), a sweeping tale of the lives of disabled rural villagers from the Chinese Communist revolution through the years of reform and opening and The Sunlit Years (日光流年, Riguang Liunian) Solidity of Water (or: Hard as Water, 坚硬如水, Jianying Ru Shui). He is particularly critical about the impact that government censorship – and self-censorship – have had on contemporary Chinese writers. In spite of the banning of these two novels and in spite of being prohibited from obtaining a passport or travelling abroad for three years, Yan continues to speak out. Apparently, Yan Lianke visited the affected area at least seven times and lived with the villagers before writing the novel. “Dream of Ding Village” was banned because of its so-called ‘dark descriptions’, which were said to exaggerate the harm of AIDS and increment people’s fears of the illness.
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