To Live

Starred review from August 1, 2003
Written a decade ago and originally banned in China, this deeply moving novel was made into an acclaimed film in 1994 and has since been noted as one of the most influential books to come out of China in the last decade. Set around the time of the Cultural Revolution, the novel opens with narrator Fugui describing his carefree life as a young married man, father, and womanizer. His luck quickly changes after he is left penniless by gambling. What follows is tragedy of epic proportions as Fugui endures the successive deaths of his father, mother, 13-year-old son, deaf-mute daughter, wife, son-in-law, and seven-year-old grandson. Though the work can seem grim, it is told so matter-of-factly that readers easily recognize Fugui's status as a true survivor. Like fellow Chinese writer Ha Jin, Yu details the grittiness of life under communism but places a greater emphasis upon the frailty of the human condition than upon the politics behind the given scenarios. This engaging story is one that readers won't soon forget. Highly recommended for most fiction collections.-Shirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2003
One man's mythically tragic life encapsulates the horrors of communist China in this nearly overpowering yet vivifying saga. Initially banned in China, internationally acclaimed, made into an award-winning movie, and newly translated into English, Yu Hua's close-to-the-bone tale portrays the reckless son of a wealthy landowner who gambles away the family fortune. Fugui is humbled by the loyalty of his loved ones, and comes to accept the severe hardships of his altered life, but fate has only begun its brutal work. Fugui is forcibly conscripted into the army, then, barely alive upon his release, struggles with so-called land reform and the ensuing famine. As Fugui's family die terrible, often bitterly ironic deaths and this stoic survivor makes do with less and less in an increasingly surreal world, Yu Hua, writing with masterful simplicity about the unfathomable complexities of existence, tells a galvanizing story that is at once a shattering indictment of China's ongoing nightmare and testimony to the tenacity of the human spirit. A translation of Yu Hua's " Chronicle of a Blood Merchant" is on the way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)