Hard Like Water

The new masterpiece by eminent Chinese writer Yan Lianke . . . two revolutionaries take matters disastrously into their own hands while conducting a crazed affair -- Margaret Atwood on Twitter
A blistering tour de force . . . Carlos Rojas's exceptional translation makes English feel new again. Yan's linguistic daring, and the novel's relentless stream of provocative images and observations, create a sensuous and riveting world . . . a sharp, desperately moving analysis of the logic of ideology -- Madeleine Thien * Guardian *
A fascinating work . . . Yan's challenge, to his samizdat readers in China and those beyond, is to look in the murky glass of ambition and self-deception and find the face that resembles their own -- John Phipps * The Times *
A vivid, even lurid, portrait of the vandalistic savagery and hypocrisy of the post-1966 Cultural Revolution . . . Well-served by Carlos Rojas's agile and richly textured translation -- Boyd Tonkin * Financial Times *
The novel, a parody, sets itself up as a kind of Maoist Anna Karenina . . . At its core, Hard Like Water seeks to make a mockery of claims to political purity. As Hongmei and Aijun arouse each other with propaganda slogans and revolutionary citations, the novel pokes fun at how easily an ideology can be contorted to satisfy individual desires -- Jennifer Wilson * New York Times *
A piercing satire of Communism and the language of revolutions -- Ángel Gurría-Quitana * Financial Times, *Books of the Year* *
Yan probes the darkness and absurdity of Chinese society and history with a sexy satirical tale of the Cultural Revolution as wrought in a small village . . . distinctive and punchy. Yan's exuberant and unflinching tragicomedy is undeniably appealing -- Publishers Weekly
Surreal and amusing, biting and fun -- Caroline Overington * The Australian *
A gritty, memorable story . . . Yan's study of power and class struggle becomes, in the end, a near-classic tragedy -- Kirkus Review
Yan's signature biting wit creates another indelible work of bittersweet humor and socio-political insight * Booklist *
Predicted to become a new future classic . . . this is a powerful, multi-faceted book that questions everything from marriage to sexual desire, power and the dangers of hubris -- Clara Strunck * Buro *
Gao Aijun, the narrator of this boisterous novel, set during the Cultural Revolution, finds his life charmless: his village is like "a pool of stagnant water," and his wife makes him feel "a clump of cotton" in his throat. Then he meets a beautiful woman, also married, and, to attract her, sets out to lead the "revolution" in their village. In speech larded with Mao quotes and traditional maxims, Gao reveals how their romance, fuelled by the feverish political climate, pitches the village into ever-escalating extremism -- a years-long parade of self-advancing schemes culminating in an unthinkable end * New Yorker *