The Garlic Ballads : A Novel

****WINNER OF THE 2012 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE**** The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government has encouraged them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as simple as they believed. Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat even those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest. A surplus on the garlic market ensues, and the farmers must watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old for supposed crimes against the state. The prisoners languish in horrifying conditions in their cells, with only their strength of character and thoughts of their loved ones to save them from madness. Meanwhile, a blind minstrel incites the masses to take the law into their own hands, and a riot of apocalyptic proportions follows with savage and unforgettable consequences. __The Garlic Ballads__ is a powerful vision of life under the heel of an inflexible and uncaring government. It is also a delicate story of love between man and woman, father and child, friend and friend—and the struggle to maintain that love despite overwhelming obstacles.

The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government has encouraged them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as simple as they believed. Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat even those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest.
A surplus on the garlic market ensues, and the farmers must watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old for supposed crimes against the state.

The prisoners languish in horrifying conditions in their cells, with only their strength of character and thoughts of their loved ones to save them from madness. Meanwhile, a blind minstrel incites the masses to take the law into their own hands, and a riot of apocalyptic proportions follows with savage and unforgettable consequences. The Garlic Ballads is a powerful vision of life under the heel of an inflexible and uncaring government. It is also a delicate story of love between man and woman, father and child, friend and friend—and the struggle to maintain that love despite overwhelming obstacles.

From the author of Red Sorghum comes an epic novel of love, brutality and magic realism, which was banned in China. A glut on the garlic market leaves farmers watching the crop rot in the field--until they storm the Communist establishment in an apocalyptic riot. Thus, unfolds three intricately entwined tales of love and consequence.

WINNER OF THE 2012 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government has encouraged them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as simple as they believed. Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat even those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest. A surplus on the garlic market ensues, and the farmers must watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old for supposed crimes against the state. The prisoners languish in horrifying conditions in their cells, with only their strength of character and thoughts of their loved ones to save them from madness. Meanwhile, a blind minstrel incites the masses to take the law into their own hands, and a riot of apocalyptic proportions follows with savage and unforgettable consequences. The Garlic Ballads is a powerful vision of life under the heel of an inflexible and uncaring government. It is also a delicate story of love between man and woman, father and child, friend and friend—and the struggle to maintain that love despite overwhelming obstacles.

The peasants of Paradise County have been living a hardscrabble existence virtually unchanged for hundreds of years, until a 1987 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 epic backdrop unfold three intricately intertwined tales of love, loyalty, and retribution: between man and woman, father and child, friend and friend. Railing against the chaos and destruction is the blind, almost Homeric bard, the street singer Zhang Kou, whose insistent raised voice is the conscience of his beloved land - and whose fate will mirror the country's. Bawdy, mystical, and brawling, The Garlic Ballads portrays a landscape at once strange and utterly compelling, a people whose fierce passions overflow the rigid confines of their traditions. With this novel, China's most courageous and eloquent writer powerfully confirms his place in world literature. In China, the tragic romance of farmer Gao Ma and Fang Jijnu, the pregnant woman who elopes with him. It is told against the background of the 1988 garlic farmers' revolt, protesting corrupt officialdom in Paradise County. By the author of Red Sorghum Weaves ballads of a street singer with the stories of three farmers who are imprisoned for rioting during a glut in the garlic market, recounting the past and present experiences of the farmers that include the motivations of love and greed