The Seventh Day

From the acclaimed author of <i>Brothers</i> and <i>To Live:</i> a major new novel that limns the joys and sorrows of life in contemporary China.<br> <br> Yang Fei was born on a moving train. Lost by his mother, adopted by a young switchman, raised with simplicity and love, he is utterly unprepared for the tempestuous changes that await him and his country. As a young man, he searches for a place to belong in a nation that is ceaselessly reinventing itself, but he remains on the edges of society. At age forty-one, he meets an accidental and unceremonious death. Lacking the money for a burial plot, he must roam the afterworld aimlessly, without rest. Over the course of seven days, he encounters the souls of the people he's lost.<br> <br> As Yang Fei retraces the path of his life, we meet an extraordinary cast of characters: his adoptive father, his beautiful ex-wife, his neighbors who perished in the demolition of their homes. Traveling on, he sees that the afterworld encompasses all the casualties of today's China--the organ sellers, the young suicides, the innocent convicts--as well as the hope for a better life to come. Yang Fei's passage maps the contours of this vast nation--its absurdities, its sorrows, and its soul. Vivid, urgent, and panoramic, <i>The Seventh Day</i> affirms Yu Hua's place as the standard-bearer of modern Chinese fiction.