Lenin's Kisses

Winner of the Lao She Literary Award but also the reason why Yan Lianke was asked to leave the army, Lenin’s Kisses unites commu­nism and capitalism in an absurdist masterpiece that moves between the founding of the People’s Republic and modern day China.

Deep within the Balou mountains lies a small rural town populated by disabled people. Blind, deaf, and disfigured, the 197 citizens of Liven enjoy a peaceful lifestyle with plentiful food and leisure, by and large spared from the government’s watchful eye. But when an unseasonal snowstorm wipes out the grain crops, a county official dreams up a money-making scheme to boost his career and raise money for the district, disrupting the balance of their trouble-free lives. He convinces the villagers to set up a traveling act showcasing their disabilities, including Blind Tonghua’s acute listening and One-Eye’s one-eyed needle threading. With the money, he intends to buy Lenin’s embalmed corpse from Russia and install it in a great mausoleum to generate tourism; however, even the best intentions go astray.

Provocative and bitingly humorous, Lenin’s Kisses is a rollicking tragicomedy that stands as a cautionary tale of the all-consuming desire for power and wealth.

“With its distinctive language, structure, and narrative method,Lenin’s Kisses presents a distinctive vision of ‘rural China’ and ‘revolutionary China,’ even while establishing a new literary ‘nativeChina.’” —Contemporary Literature Commentary

“The novel’s depth lies in its ability to express an unbearable sorrow, even while constantly making the reader laugh out loud . . . a truly miraculous novel.” —Hong Kong Ming Pao Weekly



Praise for Yan Lianke
"[Yan Lianke] is one of China's most successful fiction writers." —The New York Times