’A work of considerable political power and lyrical beauty.’"

--SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"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

Banned in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, this epic novel by one of China’s leading writers portrays a people driven to smash the rigid confines of their ancient traditions.

The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life unchanged for generations. The Communist government encourages them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as easy as they believed. Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest. When a surplus on the garlic market ensues, the farmers watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old for alleged crimes against the state. Prisoners languish in horrifying conditions in their cells. Enraged, the farmers storm the headquarters of corrupt Communist officials in a riot of apocalyptic proportions, while a blind street singer rails against the chaos and destruction. His voice is the conscience of the land, and his fate will mirror the country’s. Against this turmoil unfold three tales of love, loyalty, and vengeance: between man and woman, lather and child, friend and friend.

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 and the struggle to maintain that love in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

TRANSLATOR ’S NOTE