The Poetics of Devastation by Yan Lianke

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the work of Chinese writer Yan Lianke. A contemporary fiction writer, Lianke became recognized worldwide for his critical approach about the developmental race practised in the China of Mao Tse-Tung and of his Communist Party since the Cultural Revolution. Having been pursued by the Party's censorship, Lianke recognizes the self-censoring process in his writing. That way, Lianke's “allegoric” style acquires a double functionality: it links itself directly to the codified forms of a millenarian culture that remains alive in the small agricultural villages of a relegated China, and on the other hand, it also directly attacks a devastating and monolithic regime that hides human tragedies under a developmental propaganda. The discussion made in this paper will closely focus on Lianke's novel Days, months, years, published in 2009.