Synopses & Reviews
This powerful novel by Mo Yan—one of contemporary China’s most famous and prolific writers—is both a stirring love story and an unsparing critique of political corruption during the final years of the Qing Dynasty, China’s last imperial epoch.
Sandalwood Death is set during the Boxer Rebellion (1898–1901)—an anti-imperialist struggle waged by North China’s farmers and craftsmen in opposition to Western influence. Against a broad historical canvas, the novel centers on the interplay between its female protagonist, Sun Meiniang, and the three paternal figures in her life. One of these men is her biological father, Sun Bing, an opera virtuoso and a leader of the Boxer Rebellion. As the bitter events surrounding the revolt unfold, we watch Sun Bing march toward his cruel fate, the gruesome “sandalwood punishment,” whose purpose, as in crucifixions, is to keep the condemned individual alive in mind-numbing pain as long as possible.
Filled with the sensual imagery and lacerating expressions for which Mo Yan is so celebrated, Sandalwood Death brilliantly exhibits a range of artistic styles, from stylized arias and poetry to the antiquated idiom of late Imperial China to contemporary prose. Its starkly beautiful language is here masterfully rendered into English by renowned translator Howard Goldblatt.
Review
Mo Yan’s recreation of the Boxer Rebellion opens, as it will close, with first-person narratives by voluptuous Meiniang and the four men in her life: her father, an opera singer leading the rebellion against the German railroad workers; her husband, a dull, muscular butcher of dogs and pigs; her father-in-law, the Imperial executioner assigned to punish the rebel leader; and her rich lover, the Magistrate who betrays her father to the foreign invaders where the sandalwood death will be his punishment. The plot has all the ingredients of an opera tragedy, and the monologues that form the opening and closing chapters each begin with lyrics from a Chinese folk opera based on the same story called
Sandalwood Death. Three public executions, at the novel’s beginning, middle, and end, are set pieces of ceremonial horror. Zhao Jia, the Imperial executioner, is such a cold-blooded, cunning, ruthless fellow that only the novel’s first sentence, revealing that the heroine will stab him to death in seven days, gives the reader the courage to read on as he performs hideously cruel public executions as well as shames, abuses and torments the more likeable pawns in this dark, suspenseful love story. Fortunately, the heroine’s not-so-bright husband provides comic relief, blundering along good-naturedly, blind to the obvious, falling out of bed when she screams in her sleep with desire for another man. Mo Yan is a mesmerizing storyteller and a daring one, constantly showing the other side of characters you thought you knew. He gives away plot turns before they happen. He introduces a character in flashback
after showing him publically executed by the hideous slicing death of 500 cuts. Though his irrepressible trademark humor has little opportunity to shine here, the scenes are just as knockdown powerful, and his sense of theatricality knows how to prolong suspense and deliver wallops of surprise as he brings to life a collapsing empire over a hundred years ago, where long beards are sexually attractive, dogs are herded and butchered as food, and public executions are long, horrific torture sessions of satanic ingenuity. Not until sixty pages from the end of this huge novel does Mo Yan give the reader a first glimpse of the staggering finale he has painstakingly prepared – detail after detail quietly building over hundreds of pages in a mounting tsunami of information come together in a final catastrophe set piece including all the main characters and resolving all the novel’s themes in a once-in-a-lifetime ending no reader will ever,
ever forget. –
Nick DiMartinoReview
Praise for the original French edition:
“A text of luminous, intuitive grace.”—Christine Ferniot, Lire Magazine
“There is a Bobin style, a way of approaching literature through the joy that words radiate, the light they hold within.” —Guy Goffette, Le Monde
“A portrait full of empathy that cares little for chronology and facts, since what really matters to the author is elsewhere. . . . Bobin preserves Emily Dickinsons fervor, her attentiveness to small things, to nothing, to simplicity. . . . This is a biography full of grace and vision.”—Gérard Pussey, Elle Magazine (France)
Review
and#8220;Mr. Manfredand#8217;s novel carries the feel of open country, of grass and wind, sun and rain, moonlight and starlight. . . . It is harshly real.and#8221;and#8212;New York Herald Tribuneand#160;and#160;
Review
and#8220;Manfred has woven a wondrously complex story of a young Sioux warriorand#8217;s search for the inner core of manhoodand#8217;s dignityand#8212;the ability to live with oneself.and#8221;and#8212;
San Francisco Chronicleand#160;
Review
and#8220;Here is Indian lore, humor, customs, daily life, religion, identification with natureand#8212;and superb endurance in full detail, color, and understanding. Strenuousand#8212;and satisfying.and#8221;and#8212;Kirkus Reviewsand#160;and#160;
Review
and#8220;His narrative has in it both the kick of actual life and the power of vision. . . . A fine and attractive story.and#8221;and#8212;
New York TimesReview
“One of Frances most talented writers, Laurent Mauvignier always kept a low profile on the literary scene—until his stunning novel about the Algerian War became a runaway bestseller.”—
France Today
Review
“
The Wound gives us a France that few American readers will recognize, a land and a people marked by a history in which memory and violence can seem indistinguishable. . . . David and Nicole Balls translation is as elegant as a flick-knife—a superb version of this viscerally important novel.”—Michael Gorra, author of
Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece
Review
“[Mauvignier is] one of the major French writers today.”—
Lire Magazine Review
“The principal merit of Kettly Marss novel
Savage Seasons is in making us feel a dictatorships intimate grip on its subjects. . . .
Savage Seasons is a novel about the widespread abandonment of freedom by a society that has become
macoute, where dictatorship leads to collective, accepted madness.”—Christian Tortel,
Le Monde
Review
“A breathless novel that combines fiction and reality with both dexterity and pugnacity.”—Brune
Review
“A fine feminist and political novel that plunges into a country where ‘nobody dies a natural death. As she reveals the mechanisms of this totalitarian regime, Kettly Mars confirms the energy of Haitian literature, which includes, besides Dany Laferrière or Lyonel Trouillot, remarkable women as well.”—Le Nouvel Observateur
Review
“[Savage Seasons] makes clear the Haitian misfortune beyond pathetic clichés for those who want to understand a country that suffers not only from the cruelty of nature but also from the violence of political history.”—La Vie
Review
“Without concessions and writing in an incisive style, [Kettly Mars] claims the wealth of her multicultural heritage as she at the same time denounces its quirks.”—Le Quotidien du Medecin
Review
"[The Lady in White is a] significant addition to the literature around Emily Dickinson."—M.A.Orthofer, Complete Review
Synopsis
Sandalwood Death is set during the Boxer Rebellion (1898–1901)—an anti-imperialist struggle waged by North China’s farmers and craftsmen in opposition to Western influence. Against a broad historical canvas, the novel centers on the interplay between its female protagonist, Sun Meiniang, and the three paternal figures in her life. One of these men is her biological father, Sun Bing, an opera virtuoso and a leader of the Boxer Rebellion.
Synopsis
To this day, Emily Dickinson remains a beloved and enigmatic figure in American poetry. This “lady in white,” who shut herself away from the world and found solace alone with her words, has since her death been viewed primarily through the lens of her poetry, which afforded her beauty and hope amid the agony and loneliness of her life.
As a reclusive writer himself, contemporary French author Christian Bobin felt a kindred tie to the poetess, and his book The Lady in White honors Dickinson in the form of a brief, poetically imagined account of her life and the work that she gave the world. This fresh and personal interpretation of Dickinsons life leaves one with an impression of knowing Dickinson both through her poetry, as recalled by Bobin, and as he senses the person she was through her work and the sparse facts we have about her life.
Synopsis
High on a remote butte, a young Sioux waits. Though daring in battle, skillful, and strong, he cannot be a man until his spiritual vision comes. When it appears, he must interpret it correctly to know who he is, and he must deserve it or continue to be called No Name.
No Name has his vision, a glowing white mare who walks among the stars. She tells No Name his destiny and how to achieve it. He must pass through hostile camps, storm, and fire, risking his life many times to become Conquering Horse, chief of the Sioux.
Conquering Horse is the first of Frederick Manfredand#8217;s five-volume series, The Buckskin Man Tales.
Synopsis
“Where is your wound?” asks Jean Genet in the lines Laurent Mauvignier uses as an epigraph to
The Wound. By the time we have finished this four-part novel, we realize that for many the wound lies four decades back in “the Events” that people have tried to not talk about ever since: the Algerian War.
Chronicling the lives of two cousins—Bernard and Rabut—both in the present and at the time of the Algerian War of Independence in the 1960s, we get a full picture of the lasting effects this event had on the men who were involved. Through the fragments of their stories we see the whole history of the war: its atrocities, its horrors, and its hatreds. Mauvignier shows readers how the Algerian War, always present yet always repressed, has sickened the emotional and moral life of everyone it touched—and France itself, perhaps. The epigraph, like the novel, suggests that wounded men may even become the wound itself.
Synopsis
Port-au-Prince, the 1960s: Duvalier and his militia are systematically eliminating opponents to the regime. Daniel Leroy, editor in chief of the opposition newspaper, has just been arrested. To find out what has become of him, his wife, Nirvah, visits Raoul Vincent, secretary of state at the Office of Public Safety. This fearsome head of the secret police is instantly smitten, and to ensure her husbands survival and protect her family, Nirvah submits to the officials desires. Becoming the mistress of a strongman in the regime is not without its benefits. Still, she has to endure her neighbors inquisitive looks and the silent questions of her own children.
Kettly Marss Savage Seasons describes a pivotal and painful period in Haitian history by weaving together two stories: the personal story of Nirvah and her family and the universal story of Duvaliers dictatorial regime and its abuses.
About the Author
Frederick Manfred (1912and#8211;94) grew up on a farm in Iowa with six brothers, attended Calvin College in Michigan, and then hitchhiked for two years across America, which provided him with rich materials for his writing. His twenty-five novels include the five-volume series The Buckskin Man Tales, of which
Lord Grizzly and
Scarlet Plume are also available in Bison Books editions. Manfred also published volumes of poetry, short stories, and essays. Delbert E. Wylder (1923and#8211;2004) was one of the founding members of the Western Literature Association and is the author of
Popular Westerns and
Emerson Hough. Charles L. Woodard is a distinguished professor of English at South Dakota State University and the author of
Peril and Promise: Essays on Community in South Dakota and Beyond.