an] illuminating, morally complex, and symphonic novel.This last question is important, because it’s possible that humans are oblivious to the agency of the nonhuman world around us. Praise for The Vagrants 'She bridges our world to the Chinese world with a mind that is incredibly supple and subtle.' - W Magazine 'A Balzacian look at one community's suppressed loves and betrayals.' -Vogue 'A sweeping novel of struggle, survival, and love in the time of oppression. Coetzee, Yiyun Li gives us a stunning novel that is at once a picture of life in a special part of the world during a historic period, a universal portrait of human frailty and courage, and a mesmerizing work of art.

Writing with profound emotion, and in the superb tradition of fiction by such writers as Orhan Pamuk and J. We read of delicate moments and acts of violence by mothers, sons, husbands, neighbors, wives, lovers, and more, as Gu Shan's execution spurs a brutal government reaction.

Life in a world of oppression and pain is portrayed through stories of resilience, sacrifice, perversion, courage, and belief. In luminous prose, Yiyun Li weaves together the lives of these and other unforgettable characters, including a serious seven-year-old boy, Tong aĬrippled girl named Nini the sinister idler Bashi and Kai, a beautiful radio news announcer who is married to a man from a powerful family. Neither of them imagines that their daughter's death will have profound and far-reaching effects, in Muddy River and beyond. Shan's father, Teacher Gu, who has already, in his heart and mind, buried his rebellious daughter, begins to retreat into memories. Her distraught mother, determined to follow the custom of burning her only child's clothing to ease her journey into the next world, is about to make another bold decision. Now a political prisoner, she is to be executed for her dissent. A young woman, Gu Shan, a bold spirit and a follower of Chairman Mao, has renounced her faith in Communism. Shortlisted for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Morning dawns on the provincial city of Muddy River. In luminous prose, award-winning author Yiyun Li weaves together the lives of unforgettable characters who are forced to make moral choices, and choices for survival, in China in the late 1970s.

The vagrants book