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The Garlic Ballads: A Novel Paperback – November 1, 2012

by Mo Yan (Author), Howard Goldblatt (Translator)

260 ratings

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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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A work of considerable political power and lyrical beauty.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

““Mo Yan is one of China’s best writers.”” (New York Times)

“Mo Yan gives you a sharp and sentimental view of peasant life, while demonstrating at full throttle the nastiness, brutality, and brevity of it all.” (Newsday)

About the Author

Howard Goldblatt is a literary translator of numerous works of contemporary Chinese fiction from mainland China and Taiwan, including Nobel Prize–winner Mo Yan, five of whose works are published by Arcade (The Garlic Ballads; The Republic of Wine; Big Breasts and Wide Hips; Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out; Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh). He has also translated works by Liu Zhenyun (I Did Not Kill My Husband; The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon; Remembering 1942, which are published by Arcade), Huang Chunming (The Taste of Apples), and Chen Ruoxi (The Execution of Mayor Yin). He taught modern Chinese literature and culture for more than a quarter of a century. He lives in Lafayette, Colorado.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1611457076
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arcade
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 1, 2012
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781611457070
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1611457070
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #893,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,807 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #5,057 in Humorous Fiction
- #26,464 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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260 ratings

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Mo Yan
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Mo Yan is the pen name of the Chinese novelist Guan Moye, who is one of the most celebrated writers in the Chinese language. His best-known novels in the West include Red Sorghum, which was made into an award-winning film; The Garlic Ballads, Shifu: You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh; and Big Breasts and Wide Hips. He was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first resident of mainland China to win the award.
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Customers find the book amazing and insightful, providing a great peek into rural China. The writing quality receives mixed feedback, with some finding it well written while others describe it as nearly unreadable with spelling errors in nearly every paragraph. The story quality is also mixed, with customers describing it as a woven tale of tragedy that is SO BLOODY SAD. The book receives criticism for its portrayal of cruelty.

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Readability Insight Writing quality Cruelty

21 customers mention "Readability"18 positive3 negative

Customers find the book engaging and well-written, with one mentioning it kept their attention throughout.

"...I bet it is a good book, but I have no idea because I could not stand to actually read it!..." Read more

"Great book, shoddy production..." Read more

"Great read!..." Read more

"...The story is well written, with each chapter presenting the story from each apposing view of the two main characters, as this reflected the character..." Read more

9 customers mention "Insight"9 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful, providing a great peek into rural China, with one customer noting its detailed portrayal of daily life and traditions.

"...of a traditional society set against the Communist regime was enlightening and insightful...." Read more

"I found this novel quite intriguing. I wonder why his government did not censure him...." Read more

"This is a great book for those wishing to understand the human side of history...." Read more

"Mo Yan, in The Garlic Ballads, has delivered a perceptive looks at rural China under a corrupt communist system...." Read more

36 customers mention "Writing quality"17 positive19 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the writing quality of the book, with some praising its wonderful descriptive language and translation, while others find it poorly translated and full of spelling errors in nearly every paragraph.

"...It's hard to read when gritting your teeth and bracing yourself for the next kick in the stomach." Read more

"...It is well written and an eye opener. I will read another of Mo Yan's novels fairl soon." Read more

"Maybe, somewhere, there is a lost in translation from Chines. Read like a trashy novel, one that you read, do not have a memory or any recollection..." Read more

"...Beautifully written, the language is as sparing as the food was for the prisoners - the Kindle download contains many errors, the only reason I am..." Read more

11 customers mention "Cruelty"3 positive8 negative

Customers have mixed reactions to the book's portrayal of cruelty, with one customer appreciating its honest depiction of suffering, while others find the violence excessive and disturbing.

"...The cruelty is so extreme one wonders if ordinary humans could survive such conditions, which of course many don't...." Read more

"...But the relentlessness of the suffering of the people, the casual brutality of the officials, the animalistic brutality of a family towards their..." Read more

"...While Chinese might find this sort of social criticism fascinating and moving, to an outsider it falls flat...." Read more

"...about China and am shocked that this type of persecution and abject inhumanity is so prolific in 2014!..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

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Mothram
CULTURAL REVOLUTION VS GARLIC FARMERS, 1988
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2012
Verified Purchase

Rats so big they tree cats, and swarms of giant insects breeding in fetid water are just incidental to the suffering of peasant farmers ordered to grow garlic by the Communist government in northeast China in 1988. The setting is Paradise County, inaptly named to say the very least. Growing garlic is tricky, as are many crops, but in particular it spoils quickly once harvested. After the farmers spend days traveling in makeshift carts with their newly harvested garlic to the county offices, they find the gates locked, and while their garlic rots, they learn that the officials have bought garlic elsewhere. Led by one of the main characters, an ex-soldier who fought in the Cultural Revolution, now a disappointed garlic farmer himself, the peasants break down the locked gates and burn the palatial county offices. Once the government identifies the farmers who were there, they are taken from their family huts and imprisoned under such inhumane conditions that it is painful to read about. The cruelty is so extreme one wonders if ordinary humans could survive such conditions, which of course many don't.

The two main characters have very different backgrounds and personalities: one the leader of the protest and the other a peaceful soul who doesn't want to cause trouble. But degrees of involvement in the farmers' revolt make no difference to the corrupt officials. A parallel but integral story line is the ex-soldier's valiant attempt to marry the woman he loves despite her arranged marriage. Their story is also heartbreaking.

This book is painful to read but important to know about. The author, a Nobel Prize winner, was born and grew up lived in Gaorni Township, China, and dedicates the book to the people there. Although it is fiction, there is an authenticity that clearly resonates.

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8 people found this helpful

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Jeffrey Thomas Beer
I think is best work by far!
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2024
Verified Purchase
Having already read an earlier version of the book, I was disappointed in this version as the ending differed from the original. The original had a painful ending, as was the story as a whole: painful not in its readability, but the pain you felt for the main character as he was blindsided by the communist system, and never got to enjoy the love of his wife, nor their child that grew in her belly. The story is well written, with each chapter presenting the story from each apposing view of the two main characters, as this reflected the character's lives.
Mo Yan is a true artist of the pen, a literary genius. I have read many of his books, but I still think this one is the best.

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DCD
Relentless Poverty and Pain in the Chinese Countryside
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2012
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Mo Yan's novel makes Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" and Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" look like celebrations of joy. This novel of a small farming community somewhere in China lays bare a problematic that is reflected on a daily basis in the world media covering China. Local officials are inept, corrupt and powerful. They spend their time abusing impoverished peasants who are still hopeful that Beijing is getting it right, and will come to save them from the local incompetents. It is also about tradition and progress. In one scene, the novel's hero seeks to rescue his true love from an unfair, yet profitable, arranged marriage. He holds a Communist law book in his hand, and explains to the father of his true love that arranged marriages are illegal, and that "each person has the right to marry the person of his or her choice." The father ponders the words thoughtfully, looks up, and yells to his two sons: "beat him to a pulp!" When the hero minutes later staggers to his feet badly bloodied, he tells the father, "do what you like to me, but do not harm your daughter, the angel whom I love," at which the father takes a meditative puff on his long, brass pipe, and then swings it forcefully with a grunt, cutting a gash in his daughter's forehead. Happy times in the Chinese countryside -- with no hope of change in sight!

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6 people found this helpful

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B. Doherty
Misery, Pain, Courage, Humiliation
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2012
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I believe Mo Yan is trying to channel Lu Xun's "Diary of a Madman" and show a society of Chinese people cannibalizing itself. To be fair, the book's criticisms of some government practices (making quotas of what should be farmed, then not being able to pay for the surplus that results) and some social practices (arranged marriages) faces strong criticism much of which is imaginatively expressed.
But the relentlessness of the suffering of the people, the casual brutality of the officials, the animalistic brutality of a family towards their rebellious daughter and her lover--well, it gets to be too much, real fast.
[For those who don't want SPOILERS (but will wish they had read this, because it may have saved them the purchase and the time, I say here--spoiler alert.]
One of the main characters, for instance, is forced by various people to drink his own urine. Not once, not twice. . . Copious amounts of it, too. Another man is forced to eat a rich meal--after it has been vomited up by our protagonist (forced vomiting by punching in the stomach). Our one sympathetic female character, pregnant in a love relationship, after a conversation with her fetus dentata, hangs herself on the delivery day. Characters are beaten with wooden stools, strung up from their hands which have been tied behind their back, anally violated with thorny sticks. They have lice eating binges. In one, particularly well-rendered scene, a prisoner with an open sore on his ankle is attacked by a rooster who pecks and pecks at the painfully infected sore until it extracts a tendon, which it gobbles down like a worm. Oh, the balladeer of the title--tasered in the mouth!
There are some redeeming qualities to this book, but sometimes it feels like searching for the diamond hidden in a pile of decaying, amputated limbs.

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30 people found this helpful

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Amazon カスタマー
救いのない物語
Reviewed in Japan on June 24, 2025
Verified Purchase

地方政府が命じてニンニクを作らせるが、過剰生産に陥り価格が暴落して、農民が対価を得られなくなり暴動に発展する。
そこに中国ならではの他の様々な問題が絡み合い、救いのない結末へと導く。

ストーリーは面白いが、物語が時系列に進まないので、出来事のうちのどれが先でどれが後か分かりにくい。
すらすら読める人は大丈夫だと思うが、私のようにつたない英語でゆっくり読むとこんがらがる。
また、やたら排泄物の話が出てくるので注意。
読後感、非常にどんよりするので気を強く持って読んでほしい。
そして、描かれている農民があり得ないくらい貧しくて、

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Acacia Grove
The Garlic Ballads: A Novel - a book to read
Reviewed in Canada on December 1, 2023
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
THis book is simply amazing. I am a great fan of Mo Yan.

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Mom’s purchases
A Tragic Rural Chinese Story.
Reviewed in India on July 7, 2025
Verified Purchase
Another classic from the Nobel laureate, Mo Yan. The author has marvellously captured the peasants' hardships, the highhandedness, and the rampant corruption of the politicians and bureaucrats in the nineteen-eighties. The writer skillfully braids the stirring and heart-rending love story of a war veteran, Gao Ma, and a young girl, Jinju.
One can smell Thomas Hardy's rural fragrance and John Steinbeck's rebellion.
Wonderful read.
Five stars.
Dr Brij Mohan
Author -Second Innings.

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Mom’s purchases

A Tragic Rural Chinese Story.

Reviewed in India on July 7, 2025
Another classic from the Nobel laureate, Mo Yan. The author has marvellously captured the peasants' hardships, the highhandedness, and the rampant corruption of the politicians and bureaucrats in the nineteen-eighties. The writer skillfully braids the stirring and heart-rending love story of a war veteran, Gao Ma, and a young girl, Jinju.
One can smell Thomas Hardy's rural fragrance and John Steinbeck's rebellion.
Wonderful read.
Five stars.
Dr Brij Mohan
Author -Second Innings.

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Amazon Customer
Excellent service
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2019
Verified Purchase
Excellent service met expectations fully

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Roberta
A Facinating Journey into China of the 1980's
Reviewed in France on December 3, 2012
Verified Purchase
I could not put this book down. It is a mesmerizing look into village life in China in the 1980's. The writing is raw, clear and often painful in the telling of the lives village labourers trying to survive. Not for the faint of heart as the story telling is so incredibly clear and explicit.

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5.0 out of 5 stars CULTURAL REVOLUTION VS GARLIC FARMERS, 1988

4.0 out of 5 stars I think is best work by far!

3.0 out of 5 stars Relentless Poverty and Pain in the Chinese Countryside

2.0 out of 5 stars Misery, Pain, Courage, Humiliation

Top reviews from other countries

4.0 out of 5 stars 救いのない物語

5.0 out of 5 stars The Garlic Ballads: A Novel - a book to read

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tragic Rural Chinese Story.

A Tragic Rural Chinese Story.

Images in this review

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent service

5.0 out of 5 stars A Facinating Journey into China of the 1980's

CULTURAL REVOLUTION VS GARLIC FARMERS, 1988

I think is best work by far!

Relentless Poverty and Pain in the Chinese Countryside

Misery, Pain, Courage, Humiliation

救いのない物語

The Garlic Ballads: A Novel - a book to read

A Tragic Rural Chinese Story.

Excellent service

A Facinating Journey into China of the 1980's