When the sun went out

On a hot summer night, an epidemic of sleepwalking breaks out in a small Chinese town. People fall asleep and in their dreams begin to do what they most wanted to do in reality: some go to take revenge, others - to rob and rape. Wandering through pitch darkness, they are ready to transgress morality, common sense, laws and time itself to realize their secret desires. Soon the epidemic takes over the entire province, and the worst nightmares break free and rule reality. Yan Lianke is a two-time winner of the Lu Xun Literary Prize, a laureate of the Lao She Prize, as well as the Franz Kafka Prize and the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. Yan Lianke's works have been twice nominated for the Man Booker International Prize. In 2021, the writer was included in the Royal Society of Literature. In his homeland, his texts have been censored many times, and some have been banned altogether, including the novel When the Sun Went Out, which was first published in Taiwan in 2015. On a hot summer night, an epidemic of sleepwalking breaks out in a small Chinese town. People fall asleep and in their sleep begin to do what they most wanted to do in reality: some go to take revenge, others - to rob and rape. Wandering through pitch darkness, they are ready to transgress morality, common sense, laws and time itself in order to realize their secret desires. Soon the epidemic takes over the entire province, and the worst nightmares break free and rule reality. Yan Lianke is a two-time winner of the Lu Xun Literary Prize, a laureate of the Lao She Prize, as well as the Franz Kafka Prize and the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. Yan Lianke's works have been nominated for the Man Booker International Prize twice. In 2021, the writer was named a member of the Royal Society of Literature. In his homeland, his texts have been repeatedly censored, and some have been banned altogether - this happened with the novel When the Sun Went Out, which was first published in Taiwan in 2015.