Red Sorghum (Penguin) by Mo Yan is a window into an obscure period of modern Chinese history. When Westerners think of Republican China, which lasted from 1911 to 1949, they think of qipaos, opium dens, the Bundt, Shanghainese gangsters and the Nanking Massacre. But Mo Yan’s novel features rural peasants in northern China struggling to overcome history. The novel takes place in Gaomi Township in Shandong Province, a marshy landscape of little significance. Over the span of three decades, Gaomi Township’s experience with bandits, vigilantes, religious fanatics, warlords, totalitarian magistrates, Japanese invaders, communist saviours, nationalist saviours, turncoats, opportunists and patriots reflects the troubled times of China between the 192s and 194s.

Mo Yan’s writing style is eclectic. This may have been exacerbated in translation. There are passages that read wonderfully, some which may leave a ringing in you. When you get used to it, you start to appreciate how he folds time into the narrative, jumbles historical facts with unromantic magic realism and confronts politics with a whole lot of wit and irony. Red Sorghum is not fiction, nor is it nonfiction. It comes across as words hastily jotted down by someone who overheard history being told in the lanes and courtyards of his ancestors’ village. It is the best form of memory.