Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh
— Worth the detour
About
The title story follows a factory director who, after being laid off, discovers an unlikely second career that makes him the subject of a major film by director Zhang Yimou. Across the collection, Mo Yan's stories range from the tragic to the darkly comic, each reflecting his disdain for bureaucracy and his tenderness for the ordinary people caught in its machinery. Mo Yan writes about rural China with the exuberance of a born storyteller — each story a miniature epic, populated by characters so vivid they seem to have walked off the page and into the fields. The humor is earthy and unsparing; the compassion is real. Stories from a Nobel laureate at his most playful — proof that the best way to critique a system is to make the people trapped inside it unforgettable.
