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Howard Goldblatt

Mo Yan

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

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

163 ratings

3.7 on Goodreads

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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.

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Arcade
Publication date

November 1, 2012
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.9 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

9781611457070
ISBN-13

978-1611457070
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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; Reprint edition (November 1, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781611457070
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1611457070
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,520,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,332 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #14,290 in Humorous Fiction
- #62,723 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
163 ratings

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Howard Goldblatt
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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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Customer reviews

5 star		37%
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3 star		18%
2 star		10%
1 star		8%

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Top reviews from the United States

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very interesting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 9, 2022

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Story of the garlic revolts where peasants were directed by the gov to all grow garlic, of course that made too much available and dropped the prices to near zero. Another central planning success. The author details the official corruption and depravity of a number of people, including other peasants.
This is certainly not a fun book to read but one that makes you think, interestingly you see the gov response to the attack on the gov, much like our gov response to the 6 January “insurrection “
This is well worth reading and I recommend it.
Unsurprisingly, the novel version was banned by the Chinese gov. Though apparently the serializing in magazines snuck by.

Helpful

Mothram

CULTURAL REVOLUTION VS GARLIC FARMERS, 1988

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 27, 2012

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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.

8 people found this helpful

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Cynthia L. Harris

This is a well written and interesting and VERY sad story.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 5, 2015

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It's a good story,and well told, it's just SO BLOODY SAD. Like most of the writing out of China today- it all feels like an existential novel gone wrong. The plot is probably based on yet another real life Chinese government fiasco- a group of farmers in one entire district are all told to grow and harvest garlic, to reap promised great profits, only to have a surfeit of garlic in the district. This is turn results in unrest, a sort of semi-riot, police state responses, and general misery. The story is well told and absolutely rings true, which makes it all the sadder. It is especially hard to read about the farmers and local peasants trying to figure out what they did wrong, and why they are suffering, when it is so clearly simply a repressive central government that blames the people for its mistakes. You just end up thinking "God help the Chinese living under the present government". It isn't the communism that feels so heartless- its just autocratic, repressive and all controlling government making criminals of people trying to live a decent life. It really is a Very good story- it's just too sad for me, mostly because it is still so very true.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

B. Doherty

Misery, Pain, Courage, Humiliation

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 8, 2012

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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.

29 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

H P Clamann

A tale of suffering, foul smells and spoiled garlic.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 6, 2013

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The Garlic Ballads describes the desperate plight of a group of poor Chinese villagers, encouraged by the State to plant garlic and then producing a glut of the crop which the state refuses to buy. the peasants almost drown in spoiling garlic while corrupt officials, living in luxury, arrest some villagers for demonstrating against the state refusal to buy their garlic.

The story follows two desperate villagers as they are arrested, abused and punished for their part in the garlic riot. the author dwells on their mistreatment, their fear and their suffering in such graphic detail that the whole book reeks with the foul odors of decayed garlic, body odors, excrement and disease. There is very little to bring joy or even satisfaction to the reader in this unremittingly stench-ridden tale of suffering.

It may be great literature, but it is depressing to read. And smelly.

Amazon Customer

Excellent service

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

Excellent service met expectations fully

Susanne Marie Muirhead

Heart Wrenching

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 21, 2012

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I am not quite finished this amazing novel and it is one that I have not been able to put down. The detailed descriptions of peasants' lives is heart wrenching and difficult to read at times. Mo Yan is soooo adept at describing the lives of his characters. As I read I am transported in time to a place where life is unbelievably challenging - physically, emotionally, spiritually. The range of humanness described in the novel is so real, so real - a reminder of how we as humans have the capacity to be so loving with each other and so cruel, heartless and unfeeling.

Jackie Berry

Very good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 28, 2013

Verified Purchase

A book chosen by our son for a Christmas present. He hasn't had time to read it yet but I'm sure he'll enjoy it.

Richard Carruzzo

mo yan

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 18, 2013

Verified Purchase

The Garlic Ballads is life just as it is, described with great strength by an aware and loving man.Thanks a lot.

One person found this helpful

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