Life and Death are Wearing Me Out: A Novel

"Finally, in disgust, Lord Yama relents and allows him to return to earth, to his former landholdings in impoverished Shandong. But when he arrives there, he finds to his dismay that he has been reborn not as a man but as a donkey, and it is through this animal's eyes that he witnesses the fates of his former family, friends, rivals, and enemies. Subsequent reincarnations find him as an ox, a pig, a dog, a monkey, and finally a large-headed boy with an uncanny memory and a great gift for language. Through the earthy perspective of each of these characters - as wells as of author Mo Yan himself, who frequently interrupts to comment on the events - this novel narrates the past fifty years of China's tumultuous history."--BOOK JACKET.