The Garlic Ballads

About The Garlic Ballads

MO YAN - WINNER OF THE 2012 NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

An epic tale of love and loyalty, beauty and brutality by China's greatest living writer.

The peasants of Paradise County in China have been eking out an existence virtually unchanged for hundreds of years, until a glut on the garlic market forces them to watch the crop that is their lifeblood wilt, rot and blacken in the fields – leading them to storm the seat of corrupt Communist officialdom in an apocalyptic riot. Against this heroic backdrop unfold three intricately interwoven tales of love, loyalty and retribution: between man and woman, father and child, friend and friend.

Banned in China, following Tiananmen Square, The Garlic Ballads is a bawdy, mystical and brawling novel that portrays a landscape at once strange and utterly compelling, and a people whose fierce passions overflow the rigid confines of their traditions.

If you would like additional information about Mo Yan's The Garlic Ballads please email sales@methuen.co.uk

The Author

Mo Yan

Mo Yan was born to a peasant family in Shandong, China in 1955. In 1976 he joined the army and it was here that he was educated, first as a librarian, and later at the Army Arts and Literature College. He is still a staff officer in the People's Liberation Army. Despite the audacity of his writing, he has won virtually every national literary prize.