ONLINE: Yan Lianke
press release: Yan Lianke is a Chinese novelist frequently nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature; heâs often called the countryâs most controversial writer. In this special virtual Humanities Without Boundaries talk, Yan will discuss his experiences researching and writingÂ
Dream of Ding Village, the prescient story of a public health crisis of the 1990s when rural villages selling their blood led to an AIDS outbreak. He will reflect on the novelâs perspective on pandemic profiteering, government corruption, as well as trauma and hope.Â
Officially censored upon its Chinese publication,Â
Dream of Ding Village was the result of three years of undercover work by Yan, who once worked as an assistant to a well-known Beijing anthropologist in an effort to study a small village decimated by HIV/AIDS as a result of unregulated blood selling. Yanâs virtual visit provides us an opportunity to ask the questions on all of our minds du