Banned in China, Dream of Ding Village is acclaimed Chinese novelist Yan Lianke s most important and controversial novel to date a passionate and steely critique of the rate at which China is developingand what happens to those who get in the way."

A mystifying climatic incongruity begins the award-winning novel "Lenin s Kisses"an absurdist, tragicomic masterpiece set in modern day China. Nestled deep within the Balou mountains, spared from the government s watchful eye, the harmonious people of Liven had enough food and leisure to be fully content. But when their crops and livelihood are obliterated by a seven-day snowstorm in the middle of a sweltering summer, a county official arrives with a lucrative scheme both to raise money for the district and boost his career. The majority of the 197 villagers are disabled, and he convinces...

In the ninety-ninth district of a sprawling reeducation compound, freethinking artists and academics are detained to strengthen and affirm their loyalty to Communist ideologies. Here, in this isolated part of Henan province, the Musician and her lover, the Scholaralong with the Author and the Theologianare forced to carry out grueling physical work and are encouraged to inform on each other for dissident behavior. The prize: winning political favor and the chance at freedom. They're overseen by preadolescent supervisor, the Child, who delights in draconian rules, reward systems, and excessive...

and Cheng Qing, who starts out as a secretary and goes on to become a powerful political and business figure in her own right, transform their hometown into a Babylon of modern times -- an unrivalled urban superpower built on lies, sex and thievery.

WINNER OF THE Dream of the Red Chamber Award for the World's Most Distinguished Novel in Chinese