Yan Lianke (1958- ) is a Chinese novelist known for his satirical portrayals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its domestic economic and censorship policies. Before Lianke began writing satire, he served as a propaganda writer in the CCP. He currently teaches in Hong Kong.
Born in rural Song County in the Henan Province to illiterate farmers at the beginning of the Great Leap Forward, Yan Lianke’s writing is heavily influenced by his experience with poverty and its entailing despair as a young boy. His novels explore the stark differences between his impoverished childhood and the prosperity of contemporary China through the lens of popular memory. Lianke specifically focuses on what events are openly remembered by the public and how the state influences public recollection. State control of language through censorship of literature, art, and publication affects the selective memory of the past because it reenforces self-censorship.
Lianke also suggests that Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” and the desire for wealth have corrupted the people’s ability to critique the regime and create art and literature, given that most opportunities to achieve economic prosperity are so closely dependent on submitting to state power.
These themes are particularly prominent in the novel The Day the Sun Died (originally published in 2015 in Taiwan). The novel unfolds over the course of one evening, in which nearly an entire village begins to “dream walk” and get into fatal accidents as a result. Eventually, the village slips into a state of moral depravity and its inhabitants begin to act out their suppressed desires. Told through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy, The Day the Sun Died seeks to critique Xi Jinping’s optimistic “Chinese Dream” and the taboo surrounding discussion of past state- sponsored violence and tragedy.
FURTHER READING:
Lianke, Yan. The Day the Sun Died. Translated by Carlos Rojas. New York: Grove Press, 2018.
Lianke, Yan. Serve the People!: A Novel. Translated by Julia Lovell. New York: Grove Press, 2007.
Lianke, Yan. Heart Sutra. Translated by Carlos Rojas. New York: Grove Press, 2023.
Lianke, Yan. “On China’s State-Sponsored Amnesia.” Translated by Carlos Rojas. New York Times (2013), www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/opinion/on-chinas-state-sponsored-amnesia.html.
Lianke, Yan. “Finding Light in China’s Darkness.” Translated by Carlos Rojas. The New York Times, 2014), www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/opinion/Yan-Lianke-finding-light-in-chinas-darkness.html.
Fan, Jiayang. “Yan Lianke’s Forbidden Satires of China.” The New Yorker, October 2018, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/yan-liankes-forbidden-satires-of-china.