Why wouldn’t you trust a government agency looking to give you money simply for the occasional collection of blood, which is easily replaceable?ĪIDS looms large in this novel, though it is only mentioned by its proper name a handful of times. But perhaps the most disturbing realisation arising from this novel is the fact that it is based on a true incident – AIDS spreading through Henan Province due to some horrifically lack standards when it came to blood donation, particularly since it was a cash cow for poor people looking to make some quick and easy money. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a novel so multi-layered, so multi-faceted, so deep. There’s so much going on in Dream of Ding Village that it’s hard to know where to start.
From his young Uncle who has fallen in love with the wrong woman to his father, who has dreams of making it big in the Party to his Grandpa, who cannot keep up this is a novel of people under pressure. He tells us of his surviving family members, as well as the other villagers, and how they deal with the way this horrific incident occurred, and how they must deal with it every day for the rest of their lives. Perhaps Yan has written a novel that stands on its own two feet, a novel that doesn’t have to rely on the fact that it has upset the easily offended General Administration of Press and Publication to sell some copies.Ī young boy, recently deceased, recounts to us the tale of his village in Henan Province, China, where there has been an unfortunate outbreak of AIDS. Fortunately, the phrase “banned in China” is not plastered across this novel, which bodes well for me. It’s funny that most of the literature translated from Chinese for the West is promoted as being banned in China, as though reading something banned by a dictatorship is some kind of protest, some kind of “Fuck you” to the Chinese government.
I’m posting this today, as opposed to a usual Tuesday post, because today is World AIDS Day.
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