“Yan’s writing does for the Chinese heartland what John Steinbeck did for the American West, or Thomas Hardy for Southwest England.”—Newman Prize for Chinese Literature Citation
“Yan is one of those rare geniuses who finds in the peculiar absurdities of his own culture the absurdities that infect all cultures.”—The Washington Post
“China’s most controversial novelist . . . [A] preternatural gift for metaphor spills out of him unbidden.”—The New Yorker
“Yan’s subject is China, but he has condensed the human forces driving today’s global upheavals into a bracing, universal vision.”—The New York Times Book Review
“China’s foremost literary satirist . . . He deploys offbeat humor, anarchic set pieces and surreal imagery to shed new light on dark episodes from modern Chinese history.”—Financial Times
“[Yan is] criticizing the foundations of the Chinese state and the historical narrative on which it is built, while still somehow remaining one of its most lauded writers.”—The New Republic
“There is nothing magical about Yan Lianke’s realism . . . [with his] unflinching eye that nevertheless leaves you blinking with the whirling absurdities of the human condition.”—Independent
“One of China’s most important—and certainly most fearless—living writers.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Yan Lianke reminds us that free expression is always in contention—to write is to risk the hand of power.”—The Guardian
“Books are seldom brave. Most pass into the world unnoticed; many are destined to be read by only a small (if admiring) audience. Yan Lianke’s novels are different.”—The Telegraph
“Open up to the first page of any Yan Lianke novel, and you’ll feel confident that you’re in the hands of an assured and timeless storyteller. There’s always something deeply psychological about his books—like he’s probing at a desperate part of the psyche that most prefer to leave alone.”—Literary Hub
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