YAN LIANKE

Yan Lianke is one of China's most important and fearless writers. He studied politics and pedagogy at Henan University and literature at the Art Institute of the People's Liberation Army. Yan has published fifteen novels and a large number of short story and essay collections. His books have been translated into twenty-five languages.



Yan Lianke gained international recognition with the novel Serve the People! (2005, translated into Norwegian in 2008, translated by Brit Sæthre). It was banned by Chinese authorities, as were his later novels The Dream of Ding Village (2006, translated into Norwegian in 2009) and The Four Books (2011, translated into Norwegian in 2018). Several of Yan's books are set in the fictional landscape of the Balou Mountains, one of the most distinctive environments in contemporary Chinese literature.



Yan Lianke began as a realistic writer, but towards the end of the 1990s, his style underwent significant changes. It incorporated far more fantastical elements, with extensive use of allegory and sophisticated satire. Yan himself calls his method and worldview mythical realism, defining it as an original literary way of revealing an invisible reality, bringing it to light even though it is hidden, and describing it even though it is 'non-existent.'



He has received numerous awards for his writing, including the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature (2021), the Franz Kafka Prize (2016), as well as prestigious Chinese awards such as the Lu Xun Literary Prize (2000) and the Lao She Literary Award (2002). He has been shortlisted twice for the International Booker Prize and nominated for The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Prix Fémina Étranger. In Norwegian, his works include Lenin's Kiss (2004, translated into Norwegian in 2011), Serve the People!, The Dream of Ding Village, The Four Books, and The Explosion Chronicles (2013, translated into Norwegian in 2021 by Brit Sæthre and Tom Lotherington). Yan Lianke currently resides in Beijing.