Frog

Praise

Praise for the work of Mo Yan:
 
“Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition.” —The Nobel Prize Committee
 
“Mo Yan’s voice will find it’s way into the heart of the American reader, just as Kundera and García Márquez have.” —Amy Tan author of Joy Luck Club


Praise for Frog

“A rich and troubling epic—and a very human story… hauntingly inventive.”—The New York Times

“Mo Yan brings back the hallucinatory realism for which he’s known…[Frog is] another display of Mo Yan’s attractively daring approach to fiction. The Nobel committee chose wisely.”—The Washington Post

“Heavily laced with ardent social criticism, mystical symbolism, and historical realism, Mo Yan’s potent exploration of China’s most personal and intrusive social control programs probes the horrors and pain such policies inflict.”—Booklist

“Harrowing, haunting, poignant… Mo Yan proves himself a novelist of the highest calibre.”—Financial Times (UK)

“Mo Yan’s Frog is a raw, vivid and chaotic story…the novel is a major full-length work with big ideas on a highly sensitive subject…Readers may at times flinch and wish to look away. But regardless of his politics, admirers of Mr. Mo’s earlier literary offspring are likely to be equally joyful that he brought this one to term.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Goldblatt’s translation is inviting, while Yan’s tale deftly explores the human toll of national policy and historical forces.”—Publishers Weekly
“It’s an expansive, fascinating cultural-political history. It skilfully blends high farce with social commentary, domestic drama with deeper themes…Much of the novel is funny, much is sad and moving, and Yan effortlessly moves between the two registers. And you really get a sense of how China and rural Northern Gaomi (Yan’s hometown) have changed, almost beyond description, from Maoist times to the current hyper-capitalistic phase.”—Independent (UK)

“There is no denying the ease and beauty of his storytelling… this is often difficult subject matter — but never hard to read.”—West Australian
“Frog has that wonderful sense of flipping between the mundane and the fantastic… Both heartbreaking and absurd… a tragicomic tale.”—Adelaide Advertiser