Yan Lianke

(Songxian, China, 1958)

One of present-day China’s most widely recognised authors. From a farming family in an impoverished region in the province of Henan, he honed his pen writing propaganda for the Chinese Army. Today he is one of the country’s most critical and controversial writers. Although the authorities have banned two of his novels, Yan Lianke has received numerous awards from both the Chinese and international literary communities, notable among these being the Lu Xun Prize (1998, 2001) and the Franz Kafka Award (2014). Some of his books have been translated into Spanish in recent years: El sueño de la aldea Ding (Automática Editorial, 2013; in English Dream of Ding Village), Los besos de Lenin (Automática Editorial, 2015; in English, Lenin’s Kisses), Los cuatro libros (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2016; in English, The Four Books), Crónica de una explosión (Automática Editorial, 2018; in English, The Explosion Chronicles), and Días, meses, años (Automática Editorial, 2019; in English, Years, Months, Days).