Mo Yan is a native of rural Shandong, the site of his fictional Gaomi County, whose history and traditions he evoked so memorably in his novel Red Sorghum. He has been hailed as a Chinese Faulkner and a magic realist in the tradition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but his stories also draw deeply on Chinese tradition and culture as well as on his own experience of the harsh life of China's countryside and his time as a PLA soldier.

His often dark vision is transformed by his deep love for his land and people, his mastery of language and the sheer intensity and exuberance of his writing.

The six stories presented here give evidence of the range and power of Mo Yan's art. Unsentimental portrayals of grinding poverty, forced abortion, sexual and emotional repression go hand in hand with mordant humour and fantastical flights of imagination in the fictionalized world he creates among the wheat and sorghum fields of his boyhood home, Gaomi County.