A portrait of China’s century through the story of the women in the author's life, from the highly acclaimed novelist, twice shortlisted for the International Booker Prize
Part memoir and part literary nonfiction, The Women captures the harsh and unequal experience of being a woman in 1970s and 80s rural China. Written by the award winning author Yan Lianke, the book is both a tribute to the women who shaped his life and a sociological critique of China’s treatment of women. “In the countryside, the human being is a worker,” but rural women’s work is diminished, their hardship ignored. Through humor and tragedy, Lianke shares their story and reveals a side of Chinese life rarely accessed by the West.
What People Are Saying
"Yan Lianke’s profoundly moving memoir—vividly translated into English by Jeremy Tiang—conveys powerful truths about the suffering of women in rural China. With deep compassion, wisdom and self-deprecating humor, Yan tells the captivating stories of his mother, sisters, aunts and other women in his impoverished hometown in Henan province." Leta Hong Fincher, author of Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China
"This book is filled with tenderness. The women in it may not be precisely how Yan Lianke remembered them, but rather how he saw them at their best. His affection and regard for women, his humility and guilt, his confusion and wonder, are what compel him to tell their stories, and through this telling, to refashion them so they may be more fully seen." Zhang Yueran, author of Cocoon
"One of China’s greatest living authors and fiercest satirists." Jonathan Watts, The Guardian
"One of the masters of modern Chinese literature, Yan Lianke gives all the pleasures one gets from reading. He can extract humor from the bleakest situation." Yung Chang
"China’s most controversial novelist." New Yorker
"Yan is a nimble and fascinating storyteller. Erudite and cosmopolitan, veering between high and low culture, his narration is conversational and sprinkled with witty asides...The Women is an enlightening collection of free-ranging essays that express appreciation of family and the feminine." Foreword Reviews
