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Yan Lianke’s novel follows four thinkers held in a labour camp. The camp lies in northern China during Mao’s Great Leap Forward. This drive sought to force growth in industry. It ruined farming and caused over 40 million deaths from hunger. The book uses allegory: its tale stands for wider truths. Strange, grim events show the era’s cruelty and absurd demands.

The four inmates work in music, science, writing and theology. A boy known as the Child controls their lives. He seeks to change their views through work. He enforces this with harsh rules, rewards and punishments. He also urges them to report on each other.

State officials demand ever more grain and goods from industry. Their demands far exceed what the camp can produce. Order breaks down. The thinkers even feed the crops with their own blood. Then harsh weather and famine strike, and people face starvation. The state leaves them to fend for themselves.

This work of fiction confronts mass death and state power. It explores the struggle to keep the victims’ memory alive. Irina Ivașcu translated this edition from Chinese and supplied notes.