Lenin's Kisses

by Lianke, Yan; Rojas, Carlos

• ISBN13: 9780802120373
• ISBN10: 0802120377
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-10-02
• Publisher: Grove Press

Summary

Winner of the Lao She Literary Award but also why Yan Lianke was asked to leave the army, Lenin’s Kisses unites communism and capitalism in an absurdist masterpiece that moves between the founding of the People’s Republic and modern day China. Deep within the Balou mountains lies a town populated by disabled people. Blind, deaf, and disfigured, the citizens of the Village of Liven enjoy a peaceful lifestyle with plentiful food and leisure, spared from the government’s watchful eye and regulations. But when an unseasonal snowstorm wipes out the grain crops, a county official dreams up a money-making scheme to boost his career and raise money for the district, disrupting the balance of their trouble-free lives. He convinces the villagers to set up a traveling freak-show showcasing their disabilities, including Blind Tonghua’s acute listening act and One-Eye’s one-eyed needle threading. With the money, he intends to buy Lenin's embalmed corpse from Russia and install it in a great mausoleum to attract tourism; however, even the best intentions go astray. Provocative and bitingly humorous, Lenin’s Kisses is a rollicking tragicomedy that stands as a cautionary tale of the all-consuming desire for power and wealth.

Author Biography

YAN LIANKE was born in 1958 in Henan Province, China. He is the author of numerous novels and short-story collections, including Serve the People! and Dream of Ding Village, which was short-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize and adapted into a film, renamed Til Death Do Us Part.