The Day The Sun Died

Yan Lianke Chatto & Windus €20

Yan Lianke’s powerful dystopian novel, narrated by a teenage boy, is set during a single night in a remote Chinese village. Just when people should be getting ready for bed, they start sleepwalking, many dying in the process. The underlying political message, that China is sleepwalking to disaster under President Xi Ping, could hardly be plainer. Lianke himself features in the story, as a writer who speaks truth to power. But there is so much human colour in the book, as the sleepwalkers act more and more oddly, that politics seems secondary. Poignant and unsettling.