The Day the Sun Died
Yan Lianke
Translator Carlos Rojas
Publisher: Grove Press
Summary
The Day the Sun Died was awarded the Dream of the Red Chamber Award, which is regarded as one of the most prestigious awards for Chinese-language novels Yan was twice short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize (most recently for The Four Books), as well as the Prix Femina Étranger, the Financial Times Oppenheimer Emerging Voices Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the Man Asian Literary Award He recently won the Franz Kafka Prize for his body of work (the first Chinese writer to receive the award) This is Yan Lianke at the height of his talent for surrealism, depicting a town of sleepwalking villagers acting out their darkest desires In The Day the Sun Died Yan explores, with great suspense and humor, the nationalistic ideal of the “Chinese dream”—a socialist initiative that promotes the role of the individual in returning the country to greatness The Years, Months, Days was selected as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and a best book of the year by Colm Tóibín in Bookforum Yan’s reputation continues to grow as one of the most renowned novelists writing from inside China today; in a New York Times “By the Book” column, Amos Oz called Yan “a great Chinese writer,” and in the NYTBR for The Explosion Chronicles, Jiayang Fan wrote: “I can think of few better novelists than Yan, with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth”