''Sandalwood Death'' () is a 2001 novel by

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

winning author

Mo Yan Guan Moye (; born 5 March 1955), better known by the pen name Mo Yan (, ), is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. In 2012, Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer "who with hallucinatory realism merges fol ...

. The English version, translated by Howard Goldblatt, was released in 2013 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Plot summary

The novel addresses violence and chaos during the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...

. ''Maoqiang'' (茂腔) opera singer Sun Bing, a leader of the Boxer Rebellion, is sentenced to death for attacking at the hands of his daughter's father-in-law, an executioner known for killing by "sandalwood death," a slow method of punishment in which the victim is skewered with a cured sandalwood rod. In his author's note, Yan writes that he had difficulty telling friends what his book was about, eventually electing to tell them it was "all about sound."

Background and Social Context

Mo Yan’s historical novel ''Sandalwood Death'' is set against the backdrop of the Boxer Uprising (1898-1900). According to the scholar Adrea Riemenschnitter, “The story challenges the ingrained dualism between foreign, modern imperialism and nationalist forms of rationality, and pre-modern, local patterns of behavior and thought.” Mo Yan is particularly interested in the social class of his fictional characters and how others view them. For example, Zhao Xiaojia the husband of Meiniang, the novel’s main female character, is ostracized and looked down upon not only for being a butcher but also for being a fool. So too is Meiniang herself, who because of her poor background does not have bound feet. As she says, “Big feet are the only thing holding me back.”

References

2001 Chinese novels Novels by Mo Yan {{2000s-hist-novel-stub