For our last week with Mo Yan's The Garlic Ballads, we question whether the writer deserves the cold treatment he gets from others in the literary community and beyond. Is he a CCP stooge, or is there more to his writing? Can his crude language be a form of dissent? And what's up with the young officer Zheng Changinian?

For this series we will be discussing Life Under Communism with Herta Muller's The Passport Aug 12-26, László Krasznahorkai's Satantango Sept 2-16, and Mo Yan's The Garlic Ballads Sept 23 - Oct 7.

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