The Family Plot
About this ebook
A son who wants to kill his father. A father who wants to kill his wife. A wife who wants to kill her only son: this eye-popping new novel by one of the world’s great literary satirists is full of surprises and home truths.
In Gaotian Town, Central Plains, China, a family lives in abject poverty. The son dreams of going to America, while his father fantasises about building a new house. His long-suffering mother worries about her only child’s waywardness.
And all of them want to kill each other.
Class tensions run high in the town, from the wealthiest and most envied family in town to the girl working at the beauty parlour who longs to escape and the entrepreneurial grocer whose success has consequences for multiple lives.
Set in a time of turbulent change, The Family Plot reveals the family’s slow descent into murderous chaos in a fable about the price of desperation and desire. With his dark humour, Yan Lianke explores inequality, modernity, domestic strife and the decay of tradition – and how far people will go in the quest for a better life.
PRAISE FOR YAN LIANKE:
'Outstanding' Colm Tóibín
'One of the masters of modern Chinese literature' Jung Chang
'His talent cannot be ignored' New York Times
'One of the most prolific and bravest authors to come from China' Yiyun Li, Guardian
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About the author
Yan Lianke is the author of works including Serve the People!, Dream of Ding Village, The Four Books, The Explosion Chronicles and The Day the Sun Died. He has been awarded the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Royal Society of Literature International Writer Lifetime Award and was twice a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. He has received two of China’s most prestigious literary honours, the Lu Xun Prize and the Lao She Award. He was born in 1958 in Henan Province, China.
Jeremy Tiang (Translator)
Jeremy Tiang is a novelist, playwright and International Booker Prize-longlisted literary translator who has translated over thirty books from across the Chinese-speaking world, including Yan Lianke's memoir The Women. Originally from Singapore, Tiang now lives in Flushing, Queens.
