To Live by Chinese author Yu Hua is an award-winning novel, and it is a book you should start reading right away and drop everything else. It will make you laugh and cry, and you’ll feel hopeful and depressed at the same time. To Live is a book that reminds people of how great literature is, in which you’ll get lost and find yourself.
To Live is a masterpiece; it is unpretentious and reachable in every sense. Yu Hua suddenly takes readers to a village in China and leaves them in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. As soon as you meet them, you will find traces of yourself in characters that you will believe to be real and accept with all their flaws. And you will admire the author a little more. You will be amazed as the main character Fugui changes throughout the book. Reading the facts of life from birth to death one by one and see what matters in life will leave you speechless.
I cried a lot; I’m sure you will cry too. Even if I wanted to throw the book out of anger and sadness for a while, I couldn’t let it go; you will feel similar feelings. This is one of those beautiful books that are very difficult to find, please take your time and read it. Enjoy!
To Live
An award-winning, internationally acclaimed Chinese bestseller, originally banned in China but recently named one of the last decade s ten most influential books there, To Live tells the epic story of one mans transformation from the spoiled son of a rich landlord to an honourable and kindhearted peasant.
After squandering his family s fortune in gambling dens and brothels. The young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War. Only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. Left with an ox as the companion of his final years, Fugui stands as a model of flinty authenticity. Buoyed by his appreciation for life in this narrative of humbling power.
Yu Hua
Yu Hua is a Chinese author, born April 3, 1960, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Shortly after his debut as a fiction writer in 1983. Yu Hua was regarded as a promising avant-garde or post-New Wave writer. Many critics also regard him as a champion for Chinese meta-fictional or postmodernist writing.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
