Mo Yan – författare

Bönderna i Paradisets län har länge levt under svåra omständigheter. Regeringen har uppmanat dem att odla vitlök, men överproduktion gör snart grödan osäljbar. Bönderna kan bara med smärta se på när skörden ruttnar på fälten under den gassande solen. Missnöjet exploderar i ett våldsamt upplopp. I den skoningslösa våg av massarresteringar som följer krossas familjer, vänner och älskande. Vitlöksballaderna är en brutal och förgörande vacker roman, om en grupp bönders uppror mot den korrupta och maktfullkomliga kinesiska byråkratin under åttiotalet. Med sin säregna stil skapar Mo Yan en värld som flödar över av dofter, smaker och synintryck, där de allra grymmaste handlingar skildras med samma självklarhet som en älskandes smekning. Mo Yan (pseudonym för Guan Moye) är född 1955 och uppvuxen i Gaomi i Shandongprovinsen i nordöstra Kina. Mo Yans verk har översatts till ett dussintal språk och han är i dag en av Kinas mest framstående och lästa författare. Det internationella genombrottet kom med romanen Det röda fältet (1997), som väckte sensation när den gavs ut i Kina 1987 och även har filmatiserats. Mo Yans böcker utspelar sig i ett på samma gång vackert och störande universum. I flera romaner återvänder han till sin hemtrakt på den kinesiska landsbygden, Gaomi härad, som han i Det röda fältet beskriver som »den vackraste och fulaste, vanligaste och ovanligaste, heligaste och mest depraverade, mest heroiska och uslaste, mest stordrickande och hetast älskande platsen i hela världen«. Mo Yan tilldelades Nobelpriset i litteratur 2012.

I ett tempel på den kinesiska landsbygden berättar en ung man vid namn Luo Xiaotong sitt livs historia för en väl­sinnad munk. Det är en berättelse om fattigdom, fördärv, våld och död som alltjämt rymmer såväl kärlek som för­trös­tan. Luo Xiaotong berättar med sagolika utsvävningar om hur fadern övergav dem och hur modern i sin spariver ­nekade honom att äta kött, trots att de bodde i en slaktarby. Som pojke fantiserar han om knapriga grisöron, grytor med hundben, kokta grishuvuden, åsnekött inlindat i lotusblad och all slags animalisk föda. Men en rad dramatiska händelser får honom att överge sin köttlängtan och söka sig till ett spartanskt liv som munk. Den kine­siske nobelpristagaren Mo Yan är oefterhärmlig i sitt sätt att berätta: han kombinerar en storslagen fantasi­ med realistiska skildringar av livet på den kinesiska landsbygden -- och alltid med ett underifrån­perspektiv. Granat­kastaren är en vildsint och absurt humoristisk roman. "Om man till varje pris måste fastställa en handling i romanen kan man säga att den handlar om en ung man som oavbrutet fabulerar.« ur Mo Yans efterord Mo Yan (pseudonym för Guan Moye) är född 1955 och uppväxt i Gaomi härad i nordöstra Kina. 2012 tilldelades han Nobelpriset i litteratur med motiveringen att han "med hallucinatorisk skärpa förenar saga, historia och samtid". Granatkastaren gavs ut i Kina 2003. Om översättaren: Britta Kinnemark är översättare från kinesiska och före detta tjänsteman på Utrikesdepartementet med Kina som specialområde. Hon har tidigare översatt bland andra Lu Xun och Bei Dao samt varit verksam som frilansöversättare för SVT.

Spanning three generations, this novel of family and myth is told through a series of flashbacks that depict events of staggering horror set against a landscape of gemlike beauty as the Chinese battle both the Japanese invaders and each other in the turbulent 1930s. As the novel opens, a group of villagers, led by Commander Yu, the narrator's grandfather, prepare to attack the advancing Japanese. Yu sends his 14-year-old son back home to get food for his men; but as Yu's wife returns through the sorghum fields with the food, the Japanese start firing and she is killed. Her death becomes the thread that links the past to the present and the narrator moves back and forth recording the war's progress, the fighting between the Chinese warlords and his family's history.

Frog is a richly complex new novel about China's one-child policy by Mo Yan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2012.Gugu is beautiful, charismatic and of an unimpeachable political background. A respected midwife, she combines modern medical knowledge with a healer's touch to save the lives of village women and their babies.After a disastrous love affair with a defector leaves Gugu reeling, she throws herself zealously into enforcing China's draconian new family-planning policy by any means necessary, be it forced sterilizations or late-term abortions. Tragically, her blind devotion to the Party line spares no one, not her own family, not even herself.Once beloved, Gugu becomes the living incarnation of a reviled social policy violently at odds with deeply-rooted social values. Spanning the pre-revolutionary era and the country's modern-day consumer society, Mo Yan's taut and engrossing examination of Chinese life will be read for generations to come.'Mo Yan deserves a place in world literature. His voice will find its way into the heart of the reader, just as Kundera and Garcia Marquez have' Amy Tan'One of China's leading writers . . . his work rings with refreshing authenticity' Time'His idiom has the spiralling invention of much world literature of a high order, from Vargas Llosa to Rushdie'ObserverTranslated by Howard Goldblatt

Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh is a collection of eight compelling short stories written over the past twenty years: surrealistic political fables, ghost stories, tales of failed and perverse love, and stories about the destructive effects of superstition and ignorance. These stories capture the current concerns of the Chinese: lack of income, famine, and the devastating effects of the one-child policy. One particular get-rich-quick scheme involves an unemployed man who decides to convert an abandoned bus into a venue for private trysts which will enable him to charge lovers by the hour.

The peasants of Paradise County in China have been eking out an existence virtually unchanged for hundreds of years, until a glut on the garlic market forces them to watch the crop that is their lifeblood wilt, rot and blacken in the fields - leading them to storm the seat of corrupt Communist officialdom in an apocalyptic riot. Against this heroic backdrop unfold three intricately interwoven tales of love, loyalty and retribution: between man and woman, father and child, friend and friend. Banned in China following Tianamen Square, 'The Garlic Ballads' is a bawdy, mystical and brawling novel that portrays a landscape at once strange and utterly compelling, and a people whose fierce passions overflow the rigid confines of their traditions.

This powerful novel by Mo Yan - one of contemporary China's most famous and prolific writers - is both a stirring love story and an unsparing critique of political corruption during the final years of the Qing Dynasty, China's last imperial epoch.Sandalwood Death is set during the Boxer Rebellion (1898-1901) - an anti-imperialist struggle waged by North China's farmers and craftsmen in opposition to Western influence. Against a broad historical canvas, the novel centers on the interplay between its female protagonist, Sun Meiniang, and the three paternal figures in her life. One of these men is her biological father, Sun Bing, an opera virtuoso and a leader of the Boxer Rebellion. As the bitter events surrounding the revolt unfold, we watch Sun Bing march toward his cruel fate, the gruesome ""sandalwood punishment,"" whose purpose, as in crucifixions, is to keep the condemned individual alive in mind-numbing pain as long as possible.Filled with the sensual imagery and lacerating expressions for which Mo Yan is so celebrated, Sandalwood Death brilliantly exhibits a range of artistic styles, from stylized arias and poetry to the antiquated idiom of late Imperial China to contemporary prose. Its starkly beautiful language is here masterfully rendered into English by renowned translator Howard Goldblatt.

A benign old monk listens to a prospective novice's tale of depravity, violence, and carnivorous excess while a nice little family drama - in which nearly everyone dies - unfurls. But in this tale of sharp hatchets, bad water, and a rusty WWII mortar, we can't help but laugh. Reminiscent of the novels of dark masters of European absurdism like Gunter Grass, Witold Gombrowicz, or Jakov Lind, Mo Yan's "Pow!" is a comic masterpiece. In this bizarre romp through the Chinese countryside, the author treats us to a cornucopia of cooked animal flesh - ostrich, camel, donkey, and dog, as well as the more common varieties. As his dual narratives merge and feather into one another, each informing and illuminating the other, Yan probes the character and lifestyle of modern China. Displaying his many talents as fabulist, storyteller, scatologist, master of allusion and cliche, and more, "Pow!" carries the reader along quickly, hungrily, and giddily, up until its surprising denouement. Yan has been called one of the great novelists of modern Chinese literature, and the "New York Times Book Review" has hailed his work as harsh and gritty, raunchy and funny.He writes big, sometimes mystifying, sometimes infuriating, but always entertaining novels - and "Pow!" is no exception.

In "Change", Mo Yan, the 2012 Nobel Laureate in Literature, personalizes the political and social changes in his country over the past few decades in this novella disguised as autobiography-or vice-versa. Unlike most historical narratives from China, which are pegged to political events, "Change" is a representative of "people's history," a bottom-up rather than top-down view of a country in flux. By moving back and forth in time and focusing on small events and everyday people, Mo Yan breathes life into history by describing the effects of larger-than-life events on the average citizen.

In this novel by the 2012 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Mo Van, a benign old monk listens to a prospective novice's tale of depravity, violence, and carnivorous excess while a nice little family drama-in which nearly everyone dies-unfurls. But in this tale of sharp hatchets, bad water, and a rusty WWII mortar, we can't help but laugh. Reminiscent of the novels of dark masters of European absurdism like Gunter Grass, Witold Gombrowicz, or Jakov Lind, Mo Yan's POW! is a comic masterpiece. In this bizarre romp through the Chinese countryside, the author treats us to a cornucopia of cooked animal flesh-ostrich, camel, donkey, dog, as well as the more common varieties. As his dual narratives merge and feather into one another, each informing and illuminating the other, Mo Yan probes the character and lifestyle of modern China. Displaying his many talents, as fabulist, storyteller, scatologist, master of allusion and cliche, and more, POW! carries the reader along quickly, hungrily, and giddily, up until its surprising denouement.Mo Yan has been called one of the great novelists of modern Chinese literature, and the New York Times Book Review has hailed his work as harsh and gritty, raunchy and funny. He writes big, sometimes mystifying, sometimes infuriating, but always entertaining novels-and POW? is no exception.

Today's most revered, feared, and controversial Chinese novelist offers a tour de force in which the real, the absurd, the comical, and the tragic are blended into a fascinating read. The hero-or antihero-of Mo Yan's novel is Ximen Nao, a landowner known for his generosity and kindness and benevolence to his peasants. However, during Mao's Land Reform Movement of 1948, he is not only stripped of his land and worldly possessions but cruelly executed, despite his protestations of innocence. The novel opens in Hell, where Lord Yama, king of the underworld, has Ximen Nao tortured endlessly in order to force a confession of guilt from him. When his efforts remain fruitless, Lord Yama allows Ximen Nao to return to earth, where he is reborn not as a human, but first as a donkey, then a horse, a pig, a monkey, and, finally, the big-headed boy Lan Qiansui. Through the eyes of animal and boy, Ximen Nao takes us on a deliriously unique journey through fifty years of peasant history in China, right to the edge of the new millennium. Here is an absolutely riveting tale that reveals the author's love of a homeland beset by ills inevitable, political, and traditional.

I denna samling av berättelser av den kinesiska samtida författaren, Nobelprisvinnaren Mo Yan, vilken bara utgör en liten del av hans verk publicerade på kinesiska, är karaktärerna blygsamma och förväntar sig inte en mycket bättre framtid men försöker överleva. Det som läsaren kommer att uppskatta mest i denna bok är emellertid Mo Yans direkta och autentiska kinesiska prägel, som ger ett omedelbart, äkta intryck av det kinesiska livet och perspektiven utan romantik, med vilken den moderna västerländska världen ofta förlänar Öst.

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