The Four Books: A Novel

by Yan Lianke

Translated by Carlos Rojas

(2010, translated 2015)

Grove Press

(Novel, Political Satire)

Yan is the author of many novels and short stories. The Four Books is a dark satire of Mao’s Bold Leap Forward, the period from 1958 to 1962 when tens of thousands of Chinese were relocated to the countryside to increase the production of agricultural staples and iron – an experiment that resulted in between 18 to 30 million deaths. The Communist Party eventually referred to this period as “the four years of natural disasters.” Yan writes a fictionalized account of the experiences of artists relocated to a commune in Henan Province. The demonic officer in charge of the doomed laborers is “The Heavenly Child.” As cruel as he is, he is regularly humiliated and punished by higher-ups who demand increasingly absurd gains in productivity, which in turn cause everyone in the nearly barren fields to begin inflating reports of their yields. Other characters in the commune are “The Scholar,” “The Theologian,” and “The Musician.”  Surveillance is universal and death by starvation is a constant threat. The order to increase iron production drives the farmers to melt down their own tools and burn all the trees in their region, resulting in an ecological disaster and unprecedented loss of soil through storms and flooding. And though the workers win a prize for the size of the pig iron they produce, the quality of the iron is so poor that it cannot be used in manufacturing. 

“The Child said, “There are ten commandments, the tenth which is ‘Thou shalt not flee. Thou shalt follow the rules and regulations, and those who flee will receive a certificate.’ The Child took out his certificate, which was printed on white paper with a red border. At the top of the certificate there appeared the nation’s flag and the word certificate. There was an empty space where text ordinarily would have been, containing only a picture of a bullet—a golden bullet.” (3)