The Day the Sun Died
Written by Yan Lianke
Narrated by Graham Halstead
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Yan Lianke has secured his place as contemporary China’s most essential and daring novelist, “with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth” (New York Times Book Review). His novel, The Day the Sun Died—winner of the Dream of the Red Chamber Award, one of the most prestigious honors for Chinese-language novels—is a haunting story of a town caught in a waking nightmare.
In a little village nestled in the Balou mountains, fourteen-year-old Li Niannian and his parents run a funeral parlor. One evening, he notices a strange occurrence. Instead of preparing for bed, more and more neighbors appear in the streets and fields, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn’t already set. Li Niannian watches, mystified. As hundreds of residents are found dreamwalking, they act out the desires they’ve suppressed during waking hours. Before long, the community devolves into chaos, and it’s up to Li Niannian and his parents to save the town before sunrise.
Set over the course of one increasingly bizarre night, The Day the Sun Died is a propulsive, darkly sinister tale from a world-class writer.
Yan Lianke
Yan Lianke is the author of numerous story collections and novels, including The Years, Months, Days; The Explosion Chronicles, which was longlisted for the Man Booker International and PEN Translation Prize; The Four Books; Lenin’s Kisses; Serve the People!, and Dream of Ding Village. Among many accolades, he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, he was twice a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize, and he has been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and the Prix Femina Étranger. He has received two of China’s most prestigious literary honors, the Lu Xun Prize and the Lao She Award.
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Reviews for The Day the Sun Died
12 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a very strange book, and while it kept me going, I cannot honestly say that I understood all of it.The book is a fable when, one day, the sun seemed to die and people started dream walking. During this night, when the sun died, strange things happen. People behave in strange ways, in ways that they may not have done when they are awake.When Niannian's father makes the supreme sacrifice of immolating himself at 6:00 am (when time stood still), the sun came back, and suddenly the lost hours were recovered.Is the dream state our real state? Are we in the state of dream walking, our lives governed by politicians, marketers and spin doctors? Has the author, Yan Lianke spun a fable that would ask us to question the very state of consciousness we live in?Read this book, and see for yourself.