The novel tells the story of Xu Fugui's life and family suffering with the civil war, the three evils against five evils, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and other social changes. Finally, all his relatives left him one after another, leaving only the old man and an old cow.
Living is one of the representative works of the writer Yu Hua, who won the French Knight Prize in March 2004 for this novel.
Extended data:
Creation background
From the late period of Kuomintang rule to the liberation war, the land reform movement, and then to the big steel-making movement and the period of natural disasters, the author experienced great changes in material life from rich to poor, experienced the embarrassment and misfortune brought by many movements, and witnessed his wife and children die in front of him again and again.
Later, the author heard an American folk song "Old Slave", in which the old slave experienced a lifetime of suffering and his family left him first, but he still treated the world kindly without a complaint. This song touched the author deeply, and the author decided to write a novel like this, so there was 1992 "Living".
works appreciation
The novel To Be Alive is a watershed in Yu Hua's creation. To be alive shows the death process of one person after another, sets off an endless wave of suffering, and shows a possible attitude towards the death process. Living itself is very difficult, and you have to work hard to continue your life. It is precisely because of extreme hardship that living has profound significance. Nothing is better than living, and nothing is more difficult than living.
Baidu encyclopedia-alive