Yan Lianke: The Four Books

In the end, Yan was unable to find any Mainland Chinese publisher willing to accept the manuscript, though he did print a small private run of the novel for close friends and colleagues. The novel has been published in traditional Chinese character editions in Hong Kong and Taiwan and has been translated into several foreign languages.

In spring of 2014, it was announced that Yan Lianke had been awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, making him the first Chinese-language author to win this prestigious prize. Like the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Kafka Prize is awarded in recognition not of a single work but rather of an author’s entire literary oeuvre. The stated criteria for the Kafka Prize include “the quality and exclusivity of the artwork, its humanistic character and contribution to cultural, national, language and religious tolerance, its existential, timeless character, its generally human validity, and its ability to hand over a testimony about our times.” Named after an author who famously burned the vast majority of his compositions and demanded, on his deathbed, that his remaining unpublished manuscripts be destroyed as well, the Kafka Prize is a fitting tribute to Yan Lianke, whose own work is located at the interstices of public and private discourse — increasingly influential in China and abroad, even as several of his key novels, most notably The Four Books itself, remain largely inaccessible within his own country.

— Carlos Rojas

1 Yan Lianke, Chenmo yu chuanxi [Silence and breath]. Taiwan: Ink Literature, 2014.

2 Yan Lianke, “ Xiezuo de beipan: ” [A traitor to writing: Afterword to The Four Books ], in Dangdai zuojia pinglun , 2013:5.

1. Heaven’s Child , pp. 13–16

The great earth and the mortal path returned together.

After autumn, the vast wilderness was leveled, and the people appeared small and insignificant. A black star began to grow. The houses in the Re-Education district parted the heavens and split the earth. People settled down there. So it came to pass. Together, the great earth and the mortal path returned. The golden sun began to set. So it came to pass. The light was thick and heavy, and each beam weighed seven or eight liang . There was one beam after another, creating a dense forest. The Child danced in the light of the setting sun. The warm air painfully pressed down on his feet, on his chest, and on his back. His body pushed against the warm air, and the warm air bore down on his body. The houses of the Re-Ed district were all made from old tiles and bricks, and they were shrouded in a light from a primordial chaos. In the vast wilderness, the heavens parted and the earth split open. People settled down here, and so it came to pass. The light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. He called the light day , and the darkness night . Now there was morning and evening. The period just before darkness was called dusk. Dusk was good. The chickens went to roost, the sheep returned to their pens, and the oxen were released from their plows. Everyone put away their work.

The Child returned, following along the mortal path. The doors of Re-Ed opened. The Child whistled, and as the sound echoed across the land, people began arriving one after another. God said, Between the water, there shall be air. He created air, and divided the water below and above the air into two regions. So it came to pass. The region above the air was called the heavens, and the region below was called the earth. The earth supported the people, who arrived one after another.

The Child said, “I have just returned from town, and will now announce the ten commandments.”

Then he proceeded to read the commandments. They were ten prohibitions, including:

When resting, thou shalt not work unnecessarily;

When working, thou shalt not speak unnecessarily;

When plowing, thou shalt compete to see who harvests the most, for which there will be prizes and punishment;

Thou shalt help one another avoid lasciviousness, which will not go unpunished;

All books and ink shall be collected. Thou shalt not read or write unnecessarily, nor think unnecessarily;

Thou shalt not gossip or slander.

Altogether, there were ten commandments, with the final one being “Thou shalt not flee, and thou shalt follow the rules and regulations. Those who flee will receive a certificate.” Before nightfall, dusk began to darken the land. In Re-Ed, new houses were built in the wilderness. There were rows upon rows of houses, in front of which there were courtyards and elm trees. There were birds in the trees. God said, Let there be living creatures of all kinds, including livestock, vermin, animals, and birds. There were also poultry, of all kinds, as well as insects, of all kinds. He saw that this was good, and said, We shall create man in Our own image, and grant them dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, and the animals that walk the earth. He said, Look, I have given the people seed-bearing and fruit-bearing plants, so that they may eat. As for the animals that walk the lands and the birds that soar through the skies, together with all other living things on earth, I have given them green grass to eat. With this, everything is complete. He saw that everything He had created was good. There was variety. There was order. There was a smile on His face.

The Child said, “There are ten commandments, the tenth of which is Thou shalt not flee, Thou shalt follow the rules and regulations, and those who flee will receive a certificate.” The Child took out his certificate, which was printed on white paper with a red border. At the top of the certificate there appeared the nation’s flag and the word certificate . There was an empty space where text ordinarily would have been, containing only a picture of a bullet — a golden bullet. “I went into town, and have now returned,” the Child said. “The higher-ups asked me to distribute this to you, which I am now doing. The higher-ups said that anyone who tries to flee will receive not only this certificate but also a real bullet.”

So it came to pass.

The Child handed out the certificates one after another, asking everyone to either post them above their bed or tuck them under their pillow, and commit them to memory. Night fell, and the dusk was good. The chickens went to roost, the sheep returned to their pens, and the oxen were untethered from their plows. Everyone put away their work, and then the Child said, “In late autumn everyone must sow the fields. Everyone will be given at least three or five mu of land. On average, peasants can produce about two hundred jin of wheat per mu , but all of you have cultural ability and therefore I ask that you produce at least five hundred jin per mu . As the higher-ups have noted, the nation controls everything under heaven. The United States is a pair of balls, and England, France, Germany, and Italy are cocks, balls, and feces. In two or three years, heaven and earth will be overturned as we catch up with England and even surpass the United States. The higher-ups said that you should plant wheat and smelt steel. Everyone must smelt an average of a furnace-worth of steel every month. Given that each of you has cultural ability, you therefore cannot produce less than the peasants.”

The higher-ups had spoken, and so it came to pass.

“If you don’t plow the fields and smelt steel, that’s all right,” the Child said. “And if you decide to flee, that’s okay, too. In other districts, there are people who have been awarded real bullets. If you decide to flee, though, I have only one request. I will get a scythe, and if you don’t want to plow the fields or smelt steel, and don’t want that bullet, then you should place me under the scythe and slice me in half.