Instead of communism’s poster-happy history, Mo Yan describes a past that, with his exaggerations, parodies and derivations from myths and folk tales, is a convincing and scathing revision of fifty years of propaganda.
莫言所描写的过去年代与中共所发行的那些宣传画中的历史有所不同，他使用夸张和戏仿的笔法，以及取材神话和民间故事的内容，对以往那五十年的宣传作出了可信而严苛的修正。
In his most remarkable novel, Big Breasts and Wide Hips, where a female perspective dominates, Mo Yan describes the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine of 1960 in stinging detail. He mocks the revolutionary pseudo-science that tried to inseminate sheep with rabbit sperm, all the while dismissing doubters as right-wing elements. The novel ends with the new capitalism of the ‘90s with fraudsters becoming rich on beauty products and trying to produce a Phoenix through cross-fertilisation.
