Mo Yan "Death Smells Like Sandalwood" Moscow: EKSMO, 2024

In 2012, Mo Yan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "blending folk tales, history, and modernity with hallucinatory realism." The writer has been called the Chinese Kafka, and his books contain equal parts satirical, naturalistic, fantastical, violent, and even horrific scenes, creating a unique world. "Death Smells Like Sandalwood" is a polyphonic tale of executioner and victim, simultaneously a family and historical drama, set against the backdrop of the Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th century. You should be terrified as you read, but you're merely terribly interested, because Mo Yan offers not an exotic scare story, but a compelling and multilayered philosophical text on human nature. 

"The Emperor has issued a decree: he wants us, the Ministry of Punishments, to propose a special execution to teach a lesson to the dignitary who stole a gun... We cannot fail to justify the Emperor's trust, much less undermine the reputation of our ministry."