Lit in Translation

The Four Books

四書 · Si shu

Yan Lianke (阎连科, born 1958)

Translated by Carlos Rojas

English editions

In English

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Re-education District 99 holds intellectuals sent to be reformed while China smelts steel in the Great Leap Forward and slides into famine. Its people have no names, only roles: the Child, the Author, the Scholar, the Musician, Theology, the Experiment. Their story comes to us through four books: a mythic chronicle written in a biblical cadence, the Author's own record of the camp, the reports he writes on his fellow inmates for those above, and the Scholar's unfinished philosophical essay on a new Sisyphus. An affair between the Scholar and the Musician, a mysterious slope on the road to a steel contest and the hunger of the camp drive the four strands forward.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form
Novel
Genres
Historical, Politics (assigned by AI)
Set in
China, Great Leap Forward
First published
2011 by Rye Field Publishing
Author's age
53 when first published
ISBN

9780802123121 (Grove Press, United States)

9780099569497 (Vintage, United Kingdom)

9780802124692 (Grove Press, United States)

More
Wikidata