Discovering Fiction

“Yan Lianke is among the most innovative polemical fiction writers in contemporary Chinese and world literature. In Discovering Fiction, he demonstrates another facet of his talent: we see Yan as a sharp critic of fiction’s diabolic potential, a bold explorer beyond the boundaries of imagination and a zealous advocate of a world that is both surreal and hyperreal.” - David Der-wei Wang, author of Why Fiction Matters in Contemporary China

“Discovering Fiction gathers and illuminates Yan Lianke’s views and conceptions of literature. This rich volume also sheds light on Yan’s own masterpieces, such as Lenin’s Kisses and Dream of Ding Village. It’s the kind of literary criticism that is both useful and edifying.” - Ha Jin, author of Waiting

“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

“Yan’s subject is China, but he has condensed the human forces driving today’s global upheavals into a bracing, universal vision.” - New York Times

“China’s most controversial novelist . . . [A] preternatural gift for metaphor spills out of him unbidden.” - New Yorker

“One of China’s eminent and most controversial novelists and satirists.” - Chicago Tribune

“China’s foremost literary satirist. . . . [Yan] deploys offbeat humour, anarchic set pieces and surreal imagery to shed new light on dark episodes from modern Chinese history.” - Financial Times

“One of China’s most important—and certainly most fearless—living writers.” - Kirkus Reviews

“A master of imaginative satire.” - The Guardian

"Yan’s commentaries on the realist canon emerging over the last several hundred years are consistently insightful and often strikingly illuminating, as in his assessments of how the strongest writers, from Defoe to Turgenev and beyond, have continually shifted readers’ understanding of what counts as reality. . . . A sometimes dense but always discerning consideration of how truth emerges across an impressive array of global literature." - Kirkus Reviews

"A thought-provoking look at the state of literature, and how it came to pass." - Publishers Weekly

"The chapters themselves are a study in tasteful academic writing, which is a compliment to both Yan and his translator. . . .  Yan’s literary analyses are excellent. . . ." - Grace Utomo, International Examiner