Foreword

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction: Hunger and Loneliness:
Mo Yan’s Muses in Becoming a Writer

1

Chapter 1: History: From Fatherland to Motherland
to Playland

23

Chapter 2: Home, Bitter-Sweet Home:
A Paradoxical Nostalgia

73

Chapter 3: There Is No End to Violence

115

Chapter 4: “It Is Hard Not to Write Satire”:
In a World of Vice and Folly

179

Conclusion

221

Notes

231

Bibliography

257

Index

273