A review by n0silla
The Four Books by Yan Lianke

4.0

I felt obligated to read this title from "China's most controversial writer" after finishing Dream of Ding Village, an equally disturbing and thought-provoking book. The beginning is a bit slow, but before you know it Yan is rapidly unfolding the true depravity and grotesque conditions of the Great Leap Forward and resulting famine. Some episodes were so upsetting that I had to set the book down for half an hour or so before I could pick it up again, but I also found once I was about halfway through that I couldn't stop reading it. This book stands as a tremendous fable of individual morality and the search for meaning (or humor in the lack of meaning) in the face of senseless brutality.

One star off for the translation, which felt a little heavy-handed at times.