![]() ![]() ![]() The narrator and his classmates are so hungry, they eat coal. The book opens on the Great Chinese Famine from the late 50s to the early 60s. Gugu does have a large role in the book, but she is not the protagonist, and large swathes of the book leave her out entirely. The book is about Tadpole, the book’s male narrator and Gugu’s nephew. ![]() Many reviewers claim that the book is about a woman named Gugu, a midwife, obstetrician, and abortionist in China from the 1960s to the present day, but that isn’t actually true. In fact, Frog toes the party line just like every other Chinese writer trapped in China (though I don’t think Mo is actually trapped and rather enjoys his role as an exemplary Party member). After waiting two years for the official English translation of Frog, I can tell you that there is nothing surprising, shocking, or reactionary in Mo Yan’s Frog. ![]() The Chinese were ecstatic that a Chinese writer won the honor at all ( he’s the only Chinese writer who lives in China to have ever won the prize) and Westerners were amazed that the book was “about the one-child policy and forced abortions.” Unfortunately for people who can’t read Chinese, that description was a bit of a misnomer. Two years ago, when Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature for Frog, Westerners and Chinese were shocked and elated. ![]()
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