Sandalwood Death
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2018) |
 First edition (Chinese) | |
| Author | Mo Yan |
|---|---|
| Original title | 檀香刑 |
| Published | 2001 |
Published in English | 2013 |
Sandalwood Death (Chinese: 檀香刑) is a 2001 novel by Nobel prize-winning author Mo Yan.[1] The English version, translated by Howard Goldblatt, was released in 2013 by the University of Oklahoma Press.[2]
Plot summary
[edit]Maoqiang (茂腔) opera singer Sun Bing, a leader of the Boxer Rebellion, is sentenced to death for attacking at the hands of his daughter's father-in-law, an executioner known for killing by "sandalwood death," a slow method of punishment in which the victim is skewered with a cured sandalwood rod.[3]
In his author's note, Yan writes that he had difficulty telling friends what his book was about, eventually electing to tell them it was "all about sound."[4]
Background and Social Context
[edit]Mo Yan’s historical novel Sandalwood Death is set against the backdrop of the Boxer Uprising (1898-1900). According to the scholar Adrea Riemenschnitter, “The story challenges the ingrained dualism between foreign, modern imperialism and nationalist forms of rationality, and pre-modern, local patterns of behavior and thought.”[5]
Mo Yan is particularly interested in the social class of his fictional characters and how others view them. For example, Zhao Xiaojia the husband of Meiniang, the novel’s main female character, is ostracized and looked down upon not only for being a butcher but also for being a fool.
So too is Meiniang herself, who because of her poor background does not have bound feet. As she says, “Big feet are the only thing holding me back.”[6]
References
[edit]- ^ "Mo Yan, Chinese author". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
- ^ "Press Release: MO YAN WINS THE 2012 NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE | Chinese Literature Today". www.ou.edu. University of Oklahoma Press. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
- ^ Buruma, Ian (31 January 2013). "Folk Opera". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
- ^ "Fiction Book Review: Sandalwood Death by Mo Yan, trans. from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt . Univ. of Oklahoma, $24.95 (424p) ISBN 978-0-8061-4339-2". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
- ^ Riemenschnitter, Adrea (2013). "A Gun Is Not a Woman: Local Subjectivity in Mo Yan's Novel Tanxiang xing". Frontiers of Literary Studies in China. 7 (4): 590 – via BRILL.
- ^ Mo, Yan (2013). Sandalwood Death. The University of Oklahoma Press. p. 16.
 | This article about a historical novel of the 2000s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |