Description:
The tumultuous life and times of a Chinese intellectual in the 20th Century. This novel served as the inspiration for two films by famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou: Coming Home and One Second.
Brief description: Ai Weiwei is renowned for making strong aesthetic statements that resonate with timely phenomena across today's geopolitical world. From architecture to installations, social media to documentaries, Ai uses a wide range of mediums as expressions of new ways for his audiences to examine society and its values. Recent exhibitions include: Ai Weiwei: Resetting Memories at MARCO in Monterrey, Ai Weiwei: Bare Life at the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum in St. Louis, Ai Weiwei at the K20/K21 in Dusseldorf, and Good Fences Make Good Neighbors with the Public Art Fund in New York City.Ai was born in Beijing in 1957 and currently resides and works in Berlin. Ai is the recipient of the 2015 Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty International and the 2012 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation.
Review Quotes:
"Sensuous and disquieting ... a deft exploration of the wondrous and sad inscrutability of the human heart." - New York Times
"Against the backdrop of a China being remade by Chairman Mao, Yan takes a great sweep of history and boils it down to an intensely personal story... At times lyrical and always deeply moving, Yan's grand tale is one to savor." - The Independent
"With simple but powerful prose, Geling Yan evokes electrifying scenes of great cruelty and sensuality." - San Francisco Chronicle
"I have long been a fan of Geling Yan's fiction for its power to disturb us out of our ordinary worlds." - New York Times bestselling author Amy Tan
"Criminal Lu Yanshi is an important milestone in Geling Yan's literary career and a significant achievement in 21st-century Chinese contemporary literature. This epic novel vividly portrays the heavy history of China in the 20th century and the turbulent fate of Chinese intellectuals within the larger historical narrative." - Prof. Chen Sihe, Professor Emeritus of Literature, Fudan University, Shanghai
"In an era when the nation's leaders were calling for a harmonious dream, Geling Yan returned to the scene of Reform through Labor and closely examined its scars, writing a soul-stirring story, while at the same time raising personal and family experiences to the level of allegory." - Prof. David Derwei Wang, Edward D. Henderson Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Harvard University